CHAPTER III.
The Marchesa regained her house, which was in Curzon street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance all traces of the tears she had shed.
Half-an-hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank, you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady.
A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance—a young man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought, if he can, to wear his whole mind on his forehead."[8] The young visitor would never have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his step and in his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily—vigorous and energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not easily forget him. And the reader no doubt already recognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment.
[8] I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much by translation:—"Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in primori fronte, animum gestare."
Seating himself by the Marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable, that, while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons, than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles—the small social and private springs by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in which such knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps, (besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived,) Randal did not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For despite much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth, had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as a woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native.
Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord this and the Duke of that had passed on the Marchesa's charms, Randal laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said—
"But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, and with a generosity which no coquette could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant;'—since thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite amongst the grands seigneurs I have named, only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and wit—namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title."
"My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the Marchesa—and a certain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye—"I have lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's—"ah, I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures—of a heart so new, that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition."
"This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me."
"To you," repeated Beatrice smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; "to you—true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in her air—"and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing."
"Ah," said Randal, interested and drawing still closer towards his fair companion—"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to think that you shall be—rich?"
The Marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered—
"Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be half a million—"
"Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration.
"Of francs!" continued the Marchesa.
"Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, "about twenty thousand pounds!—eight hundred a-year at four per cent. A very handsome portion, certainly—(Genteel poverty! he murmured to himself. What an escape I have had! but I see—I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I see)—a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud—"not for a grand seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal. Providentially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural nobility—our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?"
"Did I blush?" said the Marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest ingenuous love—so evident, yet rather looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honors me with the suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not what—"
"You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He has not at present—few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean."
The Marchesa leant her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul—so had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her—(not without design on the part of the count, who, though grasping, was not miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold on her)—so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the world—that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honor, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes, by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend.
The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position might desire, in the safety, peace, and honor of a home, in the trust, and constancy, and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint an Elysium; he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero of romance—he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time."
Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as he spoke—slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said—
"Well, well, grant all you say; at least before I can listen to so honorable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pressure that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who woos me, 'Will you pay the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of di Negra?'"
"Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry."
"But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her hand to Randal, and said in her most winning accents, "You are, then, truly and sincerely my friend?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance."
"Mine? How?"
"Listen; my brother has arrived in London—"
"I see that arrival announced in the papers."
"And he comes, empowered by the consent of the Emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and countrywoman of his; an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured."
"I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?"
"By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought refuge and concealment in England."
"The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and was proscribed?"
"Exactly so; and so well has he concealed himself that he has baffled all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his pardon in cementing this alliance—"
"Proceed."
"Ah Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat—sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it—"
"But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me as to you."
"Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you know already that secret which I ask you to share with me."
"What on earth makes you think so?"
"When, some weeks ago you asked me to describe the personal appearance and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the Marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke—"in spite of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in seeking the clue to our refugees, and I did not then answer you satisfactorily, I could detect—"
"Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to shun a merriment so natural as to be ill-bred,—"ha, ha, you have the fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I may have seen some Italian exiles, (which is likely enough,) what could be more simple than my seeking to compare your description with their appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be the man you search for, what more simple, also, than that I should desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout?' For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery, "ill would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from persecution; and even if I did so—for honor itself is a weak safeguard against your fascinations—such indiscretion might be fatal to my future career."
"How?"
"Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate?—and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di Negra—for an acquaintance with women like her forms the manners and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and Madame di Negra is—a charming woman."
The Marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance' (I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to discover the home of a countryman of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires. Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear Marchesa, even supposing that I possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow,—"as yet I do not stand alone and erect—I lean;—I am dependent."
"There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to communicate this intelligence, without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you further, I add this—you urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury—till my dowry is secured, and that can only be by my brother's union with the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit."
"And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?"
"Your arguments in his favor seem irresistible," replied Beatrice, looking down.
A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments.
Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said—
"Well, at least you so far reconcile my honor towards aiding your research, that you now inform me that you mean no ill to the exile."
"Ill!—the restoration to fortune, honors, his native land."
"And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly love. I will therefore diligently seek to ascertain if, among the refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so I will thoughtfully consider how to give you the clue. Meanwhile, not one incautious word to Egerton."
"Trust me—I am a woman of the world."
Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly—
"This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a young man of your brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her."
"Her wealth will be vast," replied the Marchesa; "and if any thing from wealth or influence in a foreign state could be permitted to prove my brother's gratitude—"
"Ah, fie," interrupted Randal, and approaching Madame di Negra, he lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly.
"This is reward enough to your preux chevalier."
With those words he took his leave.
It is always safe to call an assailer of morality licentious, though many of its defenders be not virtuous.
[Authors and Books.]
A pendant to Professor Creasy's Decisive Battles has been issued at Stuttgart, under the title of Grundzüge einer Einleitung zum Studium der Kriegsgeschichte (Outlines of an Introduction to the History of War). The author divides his work into two parts: the first extending from 550 B.C. to A.D. 1350; the second, from 1350 to 1850; and each of these parts he arranges in three periods. In the first period (550 to 250 B.C.), he finds that the controlling part in war must be attributed to distinguished and leading individualities; in the second (250 to 50 B.C.), that the dominant element was the political and national, especially the peculiar constitution and nationality of the Romans; the third (50 B.C. to 1350 A.D.), is remarkable for the number and variety of warlike events, and the gradual decline of the system used in prosecuting wars; in the fourth (A.D. 1350 to 1650), the art of war was greatly advanced, especially in respect to technical science, fortifications, &c.; in the fifth (1650 to 1790), this progress continued, and tactics were greatly improved as well as strategy; the sixth period (1790 to 1850), is remarkable for the rapid development of every branch of warlike art and science, both theoretical and practical. These conclusions are arrived at after a spirited historical review of the different periods. This introduction the author promises to follow up with a complete work.
An interesting correspondence of the period of the thirty years' war has been discovered by M. Welchoff, Councillor of State, in an old travelling trunk in the archives of the Aulic chamber of Celle, in Hanover, that did not appear to have been opened since the papers were deposited. It comes down to the date of the battle of Breitenfeld, and includes letters from Pappenheim, Gustavus Adolphus, and other leaders of the time, with the rough draughts of the letters of Duke George of Brunswick, Luneberg, to whom the whole collection probably belonged. A similar discovery was lately made by M. Dudik, commissioned by the government of Austria to search the libraries of Sweden for material of this kind, in Stockholm and Upsal. The history of the thirty years' war has therefore to be rewritten.
Albion and Erin, is the title of a little volume, containing the choicest songs of Moore, Byron, Burns, Shelley, Campbell, and Thompson, with selections from Percy's Reliques, each piece being accompanied by a faithful and elegant translation into German, printed on the opposite page. For American students of German, or German students of English, nothing better could be desired. (Sold by Rudolph Garrigue, Astor House.)
The thirteenth meeting of the Association of German Philologists, Teachers and Orientalists, was opened at Erlangen on the 1st of October, and continued four days, about one hundred and eighty members being present. Böckh of Berlin, Thiersch, Halm and Spengel of Munich, Gerlach of Basle, Grotefend of Hanover, Krüger of Brunswick, were among the most distinguished gelehrten. There was even one member from Russia in the person of Prof. Vater of Kasan. Austria and Electoral Hesse were not represented. Professor Döderlein was president, and Professor Nagelsbach vice-president. The president opened the general session with a discourse upon the position and value of modern philology. In the meeting of October 2d, Wocher of Ehrinegn read an essay on phonology, or the essential significance of sounds; and Beyer of Erlangen, another on an antique statue in the Munich collection which had been supposed to represent Leukothea, but which he demonstrated to be Charitas. In the exercises of the third and fourth day were included an essay by Böckh on a Greek inscription, one by Döderlein on an ode of Horace, one by Nagelsbach on a passage of the Iliad, and one by Gerlach on a subject from Roman antiquities. The whole, however interesting to advanced scholars, had little to attract or satisfy the mass of intelligent persons.
The third volume of G. Weil's Geschichte der Chalifen (History of the Califs), has appeared in Germany, where the second was published three years since. This volume brings the history down into the period of the crusades, and gives us the exact life of men of such proportions as Haroun Alrashid, and Saladin. In ordinary cases when history enters the field where romance has achieved its most brilliant successes, it must be written with the utmost power not to seem pale and lifeless by contrast, but here the simplest narrative would have all the charm of fancy. For the rest Mr. Weil is fully equal to his subject; and throws a flood of light upon its more recondite features. His work is an invaluable addition to our means of knowing the history and natives of the Orient.
Die Deutschen in Böhmen (The Germans in Bohemia), is pleasant reading for those who like to study the manners and peculiarities of foreign countries in some detail. It also has its value for the political student who would make himself acquainted with the intermixtures and relations of the different races in Central Europe. It treats the subject in its geographical, statistical, economical and historical bearings, as well as in respect to manners, customs, and modes of life. (Prague, 1851.)
We are indebted to the Messrs. Westermann, of this city, for the ninth and tenth parts of Dr. Andree's admirable work, entitled, Amerika, of which we have before spoken at length. These parts conclude the first volume, of 810 octavo pages, printed with an elegance which, among us, is not generally attributed to German books. This volume is devoted to North America, and these two parts, are divided into chapters upon:—the New England States; the Middle States; the Southern Atlantic States; the South on the Gulf of Mexico; the Western Slave States; the Non-slaveholding, West and North; the Far West, and the Pacific Coast. Each state and territory is treated with extreme clearness and comprehensiveness, and with a correctness that seems astonishing, when we consider that the book was written in Germany. This volume is dedicated to Dr. Hermann E. Ludewig, of this city, in three or four pages, giving an account of the motives which induced Dr. Andree to write the work; we translate the dedicatory paragraph: "This book, honored sir, I dedicate to you. The literature of North American history is greatly indebted to your valuable labors; for these ten years no small part of your time has been devotedly spent in disinterestedly aiding, by advice and assistance, our emigrating countrymen on their arrival in New-York. In your new country, which you understand so keenly and so profoundly, you are still a cultivator of German science, holding your old fatherland in appropriate honor. You are in America a worthy and most estimable representative of German culture and German integrity. Receive friendly this inscription, and the cordial greetings I send you beyond the sea!" We trust the other volumes of this work may speedily appear: the second will be upon Mexico and Central America, and the third upon South America.
Spinoza's Tractatus Politicus is the subject of a work recently published at Dessau, by J. E. Horn. The author defends Spinoza's political ideas as of a practical nature, and not at all connected with the analogous theories of modern German metaphysicians. The work is the result of much thought, and of all the industry which seems to belong to every scholar of Germany.
Another work on Spinoza, is by Professor Zimmermann of Olmütz, and is entitled, Uber einige logische Fehler der spinozistischen Ethik. It attempts to prove at length that the syllogistic method of the great Jew can only be correct on the supposition that in substance the idea and the reality are coincident, which supposition Spinoza himself expressly affirms. The radical fault of this method, according to the Professor, is the application of mathematical demonstration to things not susceptible thereof. On the whole this publication adds little to the treasures of philosophy.
Another, and a valuable contribution, to the almost infinite Gœthean literature, has appeared in Germany, in the second volume of J. W. Schafer's life of the great poet. It begins with the year 1786, and comes down to the death of the modern Shakespeare. Its materials are drawn from the writings of Goethe himself, and from the published letters and memoirs upon separate portions of his life. The Italian Journey is the subject of a special disquisition. Goethe's political opinions are also discussed in connection with his behavior during the war of independence. Finally, we have the man in his old age, when his leading feature of character is said to be universality of mental activity. The style of the book is clear and condensed, and its fairness and impartiality a subject of laudation.
A third volume of Goethe's Correspondence with Madame von Stein has been published in Germany. It is no less interesting than the preceding, whether as a collection of letters, or as a revelation of the character and private history of the greatest man in German literature. The assertion that Goethe was really a man of cold and heartless nature, and that the warmth of feeling and freshness of sentiment displayed in his poems was merely fictitious, is entirely refuted by this correspondence.
A collection of poems, by Wolfgang von Goethe, the son of the great poet, was published by Cotta, of Stuttgart, in October last. We have not seen the book, but the publisher's advertisement is quite apologetic, and indicates that the name of the father has not insured the inheritance of his genius.
A new work entitled Das Brittische Reich in Europe (The British Empire in Europe), has just appeared at Leipzig, in which the progress and power of England are compared with those of the United States. The author, Herr Meidinger, is an admirer of the present policy of England, and exhibits at length the statistics of the advance made by the country under that policy. A statistical survey of the religious and moral condition of Ireland, which forms a part of the work, has also been printed as a separate book.
Students of middle-age antiquities may find a bone to gnaw in Dat Spil fan der Upstandinge (The Play of the Resurrection), just published with annotations by Herr Ettmuller at Quedlinburg. This is said to be greatly superior to the mass of the religious dramas of the time; it has a genuine unity and is not disfigured by the admixture of buffoonery with the awful realities of New Testament history. It is in the Low German dialect, and dates from the fifteenth century.
A good history of French literature has been published in German by Professor Kreysig of Elbing. It is designed for a schoolbook, and evinces both learning and fairness.
A valuable contribution to German history has been brought out at Berlin, by Kurd von Schözer, under the title of Die Hansa und der Deutsche Ritterorden in den Ostseeländen (The Hanseatic League and the German Knighthood in the Baltic provinces). The author has not merely exhausted the old chronicles of his subject in the archives and libraries of Germany, but has wrought up his materials into a living narrative, full of romantic interest as well as historical instruction.
A Catholic writer, Count Eichendorff, has published, at Leipzig, Der Deutsche Roman des 18ten Jahrhunderts (German Romance in the 18th century), in which the subject of romance literature is treated in its relation to Christianity, but not in a thorough or profound manner, and with too much dogmatism, and apparent prejudice. His idea is, that there is no Christianity outside of the Catholic Church, and that all novels which are not Catholic are unchristian.
Madame Blaze de Bury has just published at Bremen, in Germany, a novel, entitled, Falkenburg, which was issued at the same time in English by Colburn, in London. The German copy is the work of the authoress herself. She resides, at Paris, as the wife of the well-known littérateur, Henri Blaze. This novel is certainly a cosmopolitan production—written as it is, in German, by an Englishwoman, married to a Frenchman, and residing at Paris.
The history of religious organizations is enriched by Professor Richter's Geschichte der Evangelischen Kirchenverfassung in Deutschland (History of the Constitution of the Evangelical Church in Germany), which has just appeared at Leipzig. The work is highly, and, we doubt not, very justly commended.
An elaborate Life of Sir Robert Peel, with a collection of his speeches, has been published in German, by Herr Kunzel. It is a warm tribute of admiration for the English statesman, and for that process of very gradual reform by which England is distinguished. (Brunswick, 2 vols.)
Dr. Zimmermann, whose excellent history of the Peasants' War deserves to be better known to English readers, has just published, at Darmstadt, a history of the English Revolution, which he dedicates to all parties of the German people, and which we doubt not all parties may profitably study.
A history of Norway has been published at Leipzig, in a neat little volume. It brings the narrative of that country down to the present time, dividing it into seven periods, and giving a succinct account of each. The history of Andreas Faye serves as the basis of this work.
We gave in these pages, a few months since, an account of the labors and sufferings of the Hungarian traveller and ethnographer Reguly, who spent ten painful years among the Finnish tribes of Northern Europe and Asia, with a view to ascertain the ancient of the Magyars. Reguly is now hard at work at Pesth arranging for publication the immense mass of materials gathered on this long expedition, and meanwhile another savan, John Jerney, has just published in two heavy quartos the result of a journey he made for the same purpose during 1844 and '45, in Southern Russia. His work is interesting rather from its information on collateral subjects than because he has cleared up the main problem which his explorations had in view. His conclusion is that the Magyars are of Parthian origin.
In the present attention to recent Magyar history, a useful aid may be found in Ungarn's Politische Charaktere (The Political Notabilities of Hungary), just published at Mayence. It contains the biography of forty-eight different persons. Its author is a warm admirer of Kossuth and his policy.
A collection of the speeches, proclamations, &c., of that sentimental tyrant, Frederick William IV. of Prussia, has just been published at Berlin. It includes all the productions of his Majesty from March 6, 1848, to May 31, 1851, and will be useful to trunk-makers and future historians.
In the present interest attaching to Arctic voyages, Schundt's Bilder aus dem Norden (Pictures from the North), collected in a journey toward the North Pole, in the year 1850, is worth looking into. (Jena, 1851.)
Prof. J. E. Kopp has published, at Vienna, a volume of documents on the history of the Swiss Confederation.
The success in Europe of General Bem's plan of teaching history and an exact chronology, attracted the attention of intelligent friends of education in Massachusetts, at whose suggestion Miss E. P. Peabody has prepared a system of the same sort for American schools. The plan was not one superseding the necessity of study, but guiding it, and rendering it effective. It requires a very careful attention, which may be slighted either by scholar or teacher. It saves time, indeed, by rewarding labor, and by making the everlasting review of the ground unnecessary, fostering by means of the senses what is attained. Miss Peabody, in the appendix to the tables of chronology which form the manual of this system, has aimed to give some general hints to teachers, opening out before them a more generous method of studying history than has been usual in our schools and colleges.
The French democrats and socialists bring out this year the usual variety of Almanacs for the propagation of their doctrines among the people. The Almanach du Travail contains articles by Agricole Perdiguier, cabinet-maker and representative in the National Assembly; M. Perdiguier is understood to be the original hero of George Sand's Compagnons du Tour de France; several other well-known literary and political characters also contribute; the publication of the work is the enterprise of an association of printers and engravers. The Almanach du Village is published by the Propagande Démocratique Européene; its editor is M. Joigneaux, a representative, and Pierre Dupont, the democratic poet, is among the contributors. The Almanach Populaire de la France is a more elaborate publication, and boasts a larger circle of writers; Pascal Duprat, Alphonse Esquiros, André Cochut, Fr. Arago, and Victor Schoelcher, are among them. The Almanach des Opprimés, by Hippolyte Magen, is a Voltairian production, devoted to ridiculing the Catholic clergy and the saints of the calender in a style of utter irreverence for their sacred character, and even for their integrity and respectability as individuals. The Répubilique du Peuple is simply a democratic almanac, but its ability is remarkable. Arago, the astronomer Carnot, who possibly will be the candidate of the democratic party for President, Colonel Charras, Michel (de Bourges), Alphonse Karr, and others of the old moderate republican party are contributors. It is adorned with neat engravings; among them is a portrait of Dupont, the poet.
A well-known publicist, M. Croce-Spinelli, has just issued at Paris an essay on popular government, under the title of L'Arche Populaire. It treats principally of the French constitution, whose faults are said to be—1st, that it confides too much in aristocracy and too little in democracy; 2d, that the legislature may render itself independent of the people by whom it is elected, and betray their interests: 3d, that the authority of the President is too great, and is even dangerous to the development of democratic ideas and forces. The author concludes his work with the plan of a constitution which he thinks will be free from these defects.
The Asiatic Society of Paris announces the publication of a collection of Oriental works, with French translations, without commentaries, but with very copious indexes. The majority will be Arabic, and, with few exceptions, hitherto unknown to Occidental students generally. The prices will be made very low, it is hoped not higher than those of ordinary French books. This will be accomplished by introducing them as text-books into the schools in Algiers, Egypt, and Constantinople, where French is taught, and thus securing a large sale.
A publication worthy of the utmost praise is the Revue de l'Architecture et des Travaux Publiques, published at Paris, under the editorial care of M. Cesar Daly, one of the most learned and accomplished architects in Europe. This review, which is now in its ninth year, is issued monthly, with the utmost elegance both of typography and engravings. The number for October contains articles on the following subjects:—the preservation and restoration of the Cathedrals of France, the Church of St. Paul at Nismes, Stereochromy, the Museum at St. Petersburg, Chinese Monuments discovered in Ireland, the Public Garden and Swimming School at Bordeaux, &c., &c.; it has four large engravings. The work treats every branch, historic and practical, of architecture and engineering, and should be in the hands of every architect and engineer, and in the library of every man of taste whose leisure and meditations lead him to the study of the beautiful and useful arts. It may be procured in Paris at the low rate of 40 francs a-year.
A book well suited to the times is Dr. Figuier's Exposition et Histoire des principales Découvertes Modernes, which has just appeared at Paris in two small volumes. It treats of photography, the serial and magnetic telegraphs, etherization, galvanoplasty and chemical gilding, aërostatics, lighting by gas, Leverrier's planet, gunpowder, and gun-cotton. With respect to the glory of discovering photography, Dr. Figuier restores it to M. Niepce, of Chalon-sur-Saone, proving that he originated the conception, and that Daguerre did nothing more than perfect the process. Singularly enough, M. Figuier omits the steamboat and railroad from the discoveries whose history he so carefully and conscientiously records, but even with these omissions his work is valuable and interesting both to the savan and the ordinary reader.
The editors of the Revue des Deux Mondes, at Paris, have made up a very useful manual of the history of the year 1850, under the title of Annuaire des Deux Mondes, which is sold by Balliére, in Broadway. It contains an account of the political events, the international relations and diplomacy, the administration, commerce, and finances, and the periodical press and literature of every country which possesses those products of civilization. The constitutions and affairs of Italy, Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, Greece, United States, Mexico, the South American Republics, and even of the African and Asiatic races, are discussed with moderation and an effort for impartiality, which is laudable, if not always successful. The most recent statistics are given with reference to every country; and, as a book of reference, it will be found very useful.
The Calvin Translation Society, which for the last ten years has been issuing, at irregular intervals, a complete and very handsome edition of Calvin's works, in English—to make about fifty octavo volumes—will have to add to them a new collection of his Letters. It appears that the government of Louis Philippe committed the preparation of the Unpublished Letters of the great Reformer to Professor Bonnett, who had been dismissed from the College of Nismes for speaking too highly of Luther. He travelled in France and Switzerland, at the expense of the Government, in order to collect the letters. After the revolution, the influence of the Catholic clergy was such that the new minister of Public Instruction found a thousand difficulties in the way of accepting the labor of M. Bonnett, and the subject was finally referred to a committee, who reported in favor of the publication; yet, to split the difference with the clergy, they, on pretence of a saving of expenses, ordered that some of the less important letters should be omitted, and that the Latin and French letters should be published together in the same volume. The number of Calvin's unpublished letters in the collection is 497; of these 190 are in French, and 307 in Latin.
The aged Lacretelle, who of late years has lived in retirement near Macon, reposing upon his fame as an historian, appeared recently at the Academy in that city, on the day when the prizes of the Agricultural Society were distributed, and delivered an oration, marked by the energy and force of youth, but not by its hopefulness. He is now eighty-five years old; and on this occasion, was particularly severe against the communists and socialists, who, he thought, were bent on destroying every thing good, and upsetting the world. This was uttered with a point and bitterness that did no discredit to the censor of the press under both the Empire and the Restoration.
M. Romain Corunt has commenced, in La Presse, a series of Critical Studies on Socialism, which M. Girardin introduces with a special editorial, and which promises to be valuable. It was not originally designed for publication, but to satisfy its author's curiosity as to the ideas and aims of the revolution of 1848. He has accordingly gone analytically through the writings of all the socialist schools. He commences his exposition with Auguste Comte.
A French publisher advertises the memoirs of the celebrated actress Mademoiselle Mars, who died at a great age some half dozen years ago. Like those of Pompadour, Crequi, Dubarri, Fouche, Robespierre, and many others, they will undoubtedly turn out to be a fabrication by some ingenious literary trickster, yet it is probable that they will be amusing.
The five academies of the Institute of France held their annual meeting on the 25th of October. M. de Tocqueville presiding. In opening the meeting, the chairman delivered a discourse, which is praised as possessing "a great conciseness and an exquisite sense." Its topic was the aim of this annual reunion of the five divisions of the Institute. The Volney prize, which had been competed for by ten different works, was awarded to Dr. Steinthal, for a manuscript treatise, written in German, called A Comparative Exposition of a Family of Negro Languages, in its Phonetic and Psychological Aspects. This family of languages is that spoken by the Yoloffs and Bambaras. This prize is simply 1200 francs; it was established by the famous Volney, with a view to aid in the formation of a universal language. An equal prize was also awarded by the Institute to Dr. M. S. Munk, for his work on Sundry Hebrew Grammarians of the Tenth Century; and an honorable mention to Dr. Lorenz Dieffenbach, for his Comparative Dictionary of the Gothic Language. These three gentlemen are Germans, and it is not surprising that they should thus carry off the honors where the field of competition is philology. After the prizes had been announced, a memoir on the Physical Constitution of the Sun and the Stars, by M. Arago, of the Academy of Sciences, was read; then a biographical notice of Denon, by M. de Pastoret, of the Academy of Fine Arts. M. Wallon next read a fragment on the right of asylum awarded to runaway slaves in antiquity, and attempted to prove that a similar disposition to help such fugitives exists in the United States at the present day. Finally, a poem, sent by M. Ampere, was read, and received with a great deal of applause.
An interesting work on the war in the Vendée, in 1793, is now published at Paris, by M. François Grille, himself a native of the region, and an eye-witness of some of the most terrible scenes of that sanguinary struggle. He is a republican, and naturally takes a somewhat different view from that of Madame de la Rochejaquelin's Memoirs. Indeed, he corrects explicitly several geographical and historical errors into which she has fallen. He writes with vivacity and clearness, and has made a conscientious study of a great variety of materials hitherto unused. The first volume of the book has alone appeared: the others will follow with all possible expedition.
M. Francis Lacombe is the author of a newly-published Histoire de la Bourgeoisie de Paris, from its origin to the present day. The subject is one of great interest, and M. Lacombe has well employed the most extensive materials in treating it. His work extends to three pretty large octavo volumes. (Paris, 1851.)
During the autumn of 1849, the French government formed from among the members of the Institute, a commission whose duty was to select from the reports and communications made to the government by scientific travellers, what should appear of value to the world at large, for publication at the public expense, in monthly parts, under the title of Archives des Missions Scientifiques et Littéraires. The work was at once commenced and the volume for 1850 is completed; of the volume for 1851, not more than three or four parts have yet appeared. In this volume are reports by Emil Burnouf on the Propylae, the Pnyx and the Copaic Lake; by M. Bendit of a Journey among the Grecian Islands; by Lottin de Leval of an expedition to the Peninsula of Sinai to take impressions of the inscriptions in the valleys of Sinai and Serval; by M.H. Revier of an excursion in Algeria to collect Roman inscriptions; M. Battier de Bourville has an interesting account of the result of an expedition from Benghazi on the coast of Tripoli, to Cyrene, where he made some excavations and dug up several fine statues and remarkable inscriptions; M. Ducouret repeats at length the story of tailed men in the interior of Africa, but his veracity is uncommonly doubtful, and his previous travels in countries more familiar have been utterly fruitless; Mariette's report of his journey to Egypt, in which he discovered the Serapeum of Memphis, is particularly interesting. He is a man of uncommon energy and persistence, and almost lost his life in the affair. He was sick four weeks with fevers and ophthalmia, in the desert, where the Egyptian officials refused him water and provisions, so that the wonder is he did not die. The Assembly has voted 30,000 francs to dig out the Serapeum, which was covered with sand in Pliny's time, and will now be found exactly in its antique condition. Mariette is now there, and at the last advices had excavated five hundred different objects in bronze besides twelve sphinxes in granite. Very many travellers have been sent out to collect documents bearing upon the history of France, and a full account of their labors is contained in this volume. M. de Maslatire has been twice to Cyprus to obtain materials for the history of French rule in that island, and the result will presently appear in two quarto volumes at the cost of the treasury. Several travellers have been sent to England for documents on French history, where it seems they are almost inexhaustibly abundant, especially those that relate to the middle ages. The reports of M. Descloiseaux, who was sent to Iceland to study its geological formation; of M. Visquenel who went to Asiatic Turkey to examine the soil and products; of MM. Milne, Edwards and Quatrefages, who went to Sicily to examine the molluscs and annelids of the neighboring seas; and of Dr. Grange, who was sent throughout Europe to study cretinism and goitre, are very valuable scientifically. Dr. Grange finds the cause of those diseases in water containing magnesia, but no iodine.
These travels are undertaken by means of a fund provided for that purpose by the government. The plan of each expedition is first submitted to the Institute and approved. In case of very expensive undertakings, like the excavation of the Serapeum, or the expedition lately sent to Babylon, a special appropriation is obtained from the Assembly. The Archives are published neatly, with the necessary engravings, at twelve francs a year.
The mystery hanging over the interior of Africa is rapidly dissipating before the zeal of the many explorers whose efforts are now devoted to traversing the centre of that continent, and, before many years have passed, there is reason to suppose, this sole remaining geographical and ethnographic problem will be fully solved. The English expeditions from the Cape of Good Hope, the German missionaries on the eastern coast, with their journeys into the highlands in the south of Abyssinia, the explorations of the English on the gold coast and up the Niger, those of the French starting from Senegal and Algiers, the travels of Knoblecher and others on the upper Nile, with the journeys of Richardson, Barth, and Overweg, must soon make us acquainted with the principal facts that have so long been the object of general curiosity, if not of exaggerated expectation. Something is also to be anticipated from the aid of Mohammedan travellers, of whom there are a great number scattered over the interior of the continent in search of adventures or with a view to make fortunes. One of these has published, in Arabic, two works containing his experiences and observations in Darfur and Waday, both of which have been translated into French by M. Perron. The second has just appeared at Paris under the title of Voyage au Ouaday par Cheykh Mohammed Ibn Omar al Tunisi, and is especially valuable, as Waday is a country about which we have before had little, if any, positive information. It lies south of the great desert between Timbuctoo and Darfur, and is an extensive country. It is so far advanced out of the merely savage state, as to have a sort of administration, an army, and a kind of general regulations for commerce, which it owes to the influence of Islamism, and to a great man called Sabun, who lived quite recently, or yet lives, as the chief ruler of the land. The principal trade is in slaves, who are stolen in forays among the neighboring tribes on the south, and sold to caravans going north to Fezzan, or east to Darfur; the other articles of commerce are ivory, skins, and ostrich feathers. The introduction of Islamism has put an end to human sacrifices, and rendered the tyranny of the rulers less bloody, but in other respects it has produced little social improvement.
The Roman Catholic writers are generally, in Continental Europe, demanding the suppression of the liberty of discussion, and a re-establishment of the Inquisition. Mr. Blanc St. Bonnet, one of the most conspicuous writers of his party, demands that every species of free thought be discountenanced, and M. Barbey d'Aurevilly, in Les Prophètes du Passé, declares that the evil corrupting society is the pest Liberty; that the church made a fatal error in not burning Luther in lieu of burning his books; and he concludes that the Inquisition is a "logical necessity" in every well-constituted state.
The Journal des Débats publishes a long review from the pen of M. Gardin de Tassy, of the Translation of two unpublished Arabic Documents, issued last year by our countryman Edward E. Salisbury, of Boston. M. de Tassy says: "We must not suppose that in the United States every body is so absorbed in commerce that nothing else can possibly be attended to. Science and letters are cultivated with success, and there are learned men there who rival those of Europe." The Translation and its author are warmly praised.
M. de Saulcy is about to publish at Paris his travels in Palestine, with thirty large engravings of the ancient monuments about Jerusalem, and thirty of those about the Dead Sea. The so-called Graves of the Kings will be the subject of thorough discussion. It is also said that one of them will be reconstructed in the Louvre upon his plan, and a sarcophagus cover, which he brought with him, used for the purpose. He has also a Moabitic bas-relief in black basalt: he bought it of the Arabs on the Dead Sea. If it be indeed what he supposes, it is the only relic of the sort existing in Europe.
Abbadie, one of the Ethiopian travellers of that name, who has lately been so much assailed by other savants as a narrator of his adventures, is superintending the cutting of a complete font of Ethiopic letters, at Paris, to be used in printing some two hundred and fifty Ethiopian manuscripts. They will form four printed volumes, and are said to be among the most beautiful specimens of chirography ever seen. The other brother has gone back to Abyssinia again, to resume his geographical and scientific researches.
There are a great number of French missionaries in Asia and Africa, but their contributions to literature are trifling, compared with those of the English, American, and German. Bishop Pallegoix, in Siam, has lately published a Siamese grammar, in Latin, and promises a Lexicon of the same language. This, and the Cochin-Chinese Lexicon of Bishop Tabert, are the only works of the kind, by French missionaries, which we can recall for several years.
The Westminster Review, as we have before intimated, has passed into the hands of the infidel party of England, and it becomes necessary to warn the public who subscribe for it in the series of republications by Mr Scott, of its character, and to urge Mr. Scott to select some other periodical in its place, if it is necessary for the completion of his contracts to reprint a certain number of such works. There are a considerable number of charlatans in England and in this country who, without the natural capacities or the learning necessary to distinction in any legitimate intellectual pursuits, clothe themselves in the cast-off and forgotten draperies of French scepticism, and challenge admiration for the bravery displayed in mocking God, and ridiculing the most profoundly reasoned and firmly settled convictions of mankind. It is becoming fashionable among our young and imperfectly educated magazine and newspaper writers to "pity the weakness" which receives the Christian religion as it was held by our fathers. The drivel of which the veriest fools were made ashamed half a century ago, is revived as if it were a new and immortal flowering of philosophy. By the wise and thoughtful this sort of stuff is regarded with just contempt, and with confidence that though it may exist for a while as scum upon the surface, it will before long sink with kindred filth to the bottom of the stream. The Westminster Review, failing of an adequate support, was about to be discontinued, when John Chapman, the infidel publisher, bought it, and John Stuart Mill was engaged to be its editor. We hope the respectable portion of the American journals will make haste to disclose its present character; that Christian parents will no longer receive it into their houses; and that the characteristic dishonesty of attempting to smuggle writings of philosophical quacks and mountebanks under a once reputable name, will have its appropriate reward.
Of Robert Burns, a grandson of the great poet, who has recently had some difficulties with the Rajah Sir James Brooke, the London Examiner says, that he is an adventurous traveller; that he has mastered two of the languages of Borneo; that he has penetrated farther into that great and little-known island than any other European; that he has written by far the best and most authentic account of it in the Journal of the Archipelago, that has ever been given to the public.
The several volumes of essays, entitled, Companions of my Solitude, Friends in Council, Essays Written during the Intervals of Business, &c., are now announced to be by a Mr. Helps. Most of them have been republished in this country, and much read here. They are agreeable and sensible, but without any very original or striking qualities to give them a permanent place in literature.
Among the English announcements made in the last month are, Personal Recollections of Mary Russell Mitford and Anecdotes of Her Literary Acquaintances; Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham, from original letters and documents, by the Earl of Albemarle; several new books on the war in Affghanistan; The Convent and the Harem, by the Countess Pisani; Pictures of Life in Mexico, by R. H. Mason; Women of Early Christianity, by Miss Kavanagh; Hippolytus and his Age, or, Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Severus, by the Chevalier Bunsen; China during the War and since the Peace, including Translations of Secret State Papers, by Sir J. F. Davis; Sketches of English Literature, by Mrs. C. L. Balfour; Symbols and Emblems of Early and Midiæval Christian Art, by Louisa Twining; a new work by Dr. Layard, entitled Fresh Discoveries at Nineveh, and Researches at Babylon; a new work by Sir Francis Head, with the facetious title, All my Eye; Some Account of the Danes and Northmen, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, by J. J. A. Worsaae, of Copenhagen; An Illustrated Classical Mythology and Biography, by Dr. William Smith; Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, by Sir Woodbine Parish; and two new volumes of Grote's History of Greece.
The English Dissenters have recently established a new college. It is the result of a union of three existing similar institutions, at present belonging to the Independents—namely, Coward, Homerton, and Cheshunt Colleges; and it is anticipated, from such a concentration of Nonconformist resources and energies, that the standard of learning among them will be raised still higher than it is at present, though it is not now below that in the established church, which, controlling the great universities, is pleased not to admit that a man may understand Greek or Mathematics unless he subscribes to the thirty-nine articles.
Sir Charles Lyell, lately, in an Address to the Geological Society, demolished again the paltry affair which for some time has constituted the main artillery of the atheists, The Vestiges of Creation; and The Leader thereupon declares that, "In proportion as any branch of inquiry rises out of mere details into the higher generalizations which alone constitute science, we find our scientific men, with rare exceptions, pitiably incompetent."
"Christopher North" (Professor Wilson), has been compelled by ill health to make arrangements for dispensing with the delivery of his lectures on moral philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, at the ensuing session. The great poet, philosopher, critic, sportsman, and humorist, is in the sixty-third year of his age.
The Evening Book, by Mrs. Kirkland (Charles Scribner), is a very tasteful volume, consisting of some of the cleverest compositions of one of our very cleverest literary women, well known as Mrs. Mary Clavers, the prose poetess, and pen-painter of Western life. From our first acquaintance with Mary Clavers, in the world of print, we have admired, almost equally, her frank independence of word and thought, her free and fearless love of truth, her facility in vivid and life-like portraiture, and her natural strain of good-natured humor. But most of all we have admired her, for that she is "an 'author,' yet a woman too!" a consummation indeed devoutly to be wished; inasmuch as it seems to us, that we are fast falling upon days which will induce the grave spectator, looking upon the ladies and gentlemen of Young New-York, the former in the rostrum, the latter in the ball-room, to exclaim with the Persian King at Salamis, "All our men have become women, and our women men." This, however, can never be predicated of our friend of "the New Home;" and yet, shall we confess it, we like her better far in the broad west than on the Broad pavé; better in the solitude of the great woods than on the society of great cities; better in the log school-house, than in the tumultuous streets—in a word, better as the chronicler of the doings of the west, than as the critic of the goings-on in the east! So long as she adheres to the former, she is ever entertaining, ever instructive, ever humorous, ever lively, ever true; but when she comes to deal with the problems of society, when she dives into the mysteries of caste, and tempts the difficulties which lie in the way of those who would reconcile political equality with social intercourse, we fear that she will not only be found herself going astray, but—what is far worse—becoming a blind guide to others. We are led to these remarks especially by a certain article on "Streets and Servants, at home and abroad," the tendency of which we fully believe—though we are sure it was honestly written, and beneficently intended—to be positively dangerous and injurious to the very class for whose advantage it is intended.
Herein we find our fair friend discoursing thus of the female servants of America:
"Perhaps, if we could make up our minds to treat our servants as fellow-citizens now, the time when they would be disposed to shake off our service might be deferred."
And again—
"Would it be dangerous to recognize the soul of a chambermaid? Would it not be apt to make her a better one, and longer content with the broom and duster, if we consulted her feelings, expressed an interest in her welfare, and saved her pride as much as possible? At present, it seems to be supposed that in the agreement as to wages, a certain amount of contumely is bargained for," &c., &c.
Now this is quite unworthy of Mrs. Kirkland's good sense; it is very objectionable and injurious at this moment—when tens of thousands of American girls are daily all but starving on the wretched pittance which they can earn at the literally starving prices of the shops; daily falling into vice and infamy in order to avoid actual starvation; who might be comfortably lodged, comfortably clad, comfortably fed, and well paid, in as many kindly and Christian families, if they could but condescend from their ruinous false pride, and brook to become servants. Worst of all, it is not true. In no country on earth are servants so well looked to, not only as to wants but as to comforts, as in this. In no other are their labors so light, their liberties so large, their remuneration so liberal, their feelings so freely consulted—nay, in many cases, their whims so foolishly indulged. To no contumely, that we can perceive, are they subjected; but we suppose that Mrs. Kirkland regards their non-admission to our tables, our conversational reunions, or our ballrooms, as the crowning contumely—quite forgetful that the restraint of what to refined, educated, and highly-bred persons are habits, would be to the servant-girl bonds and fetters of intolerable restraint—that her inability to mix in our conversation, to see with our eyes, taste with our tastes, and understand with our cultivated intellects, would render our society far more insufferable and annoying to her than her presence could be to us; in a word, that, but for the false pride of being one of the company, our drawing-room would be far more a place of punishment to her, than her kitchen to us.
For the rest, in these United States, all this talk about independence and servitude is absurd. No man on earth is, or ever will be, independent of some other man. Every man is, in some sort or other, the servant of some other man. The rich man is dependent on his colored barber, or his colored boots, for his comfort, as the barber or the boots is on him for his wages; and perhaps the rich man would be worse put to it by the absence of the boots, than the boots by the absence of the rich man. Generally, we believe, the higher we are in position, the more masters we have to serve, and the less considerate; and we have little doubt that even our brilliant and gentle authoress herself has more and less amiable behests to obey, than ever fell to the lot of the independent help, who "thought she heard her yell."
We have dwelt longer on this point than its weight or merit, as regards the volume, of which it occupies but a page, would seem to justify; and we have done so not ill-naturedly, to pick out the one tare from the load of wheat, but merely to controvert what we consider a dangerous social fallacy, which is growing and gaining virulence and vigor under false treatment, and producing serious detriment to a large class of our population. The volume itself is, as we have observed, an entertaining, an instructive, emphatically a good one; and its getting up and embellishment reflect as much credit on the publishers, as its contents on the author. It is one of the most beautiful, and deserves to be one of the most popular, gift-books of the season.
Among the most agreeable republications of the season we may cite Mrs. Lee's Luther and his Times, the Life and Times of Cranmer, and the Historical Sketches of the Old Painters, recently issued in the Family Library of Willis Hazard, of Philadelphia. Luther and his Times appears at an appropriate period, considering the great number of works relating to the Reformer which have been written in England and on the continent: scarce any of which, however, are superior to this, either in accuracy or general interest. As an appropriate companion to it we have Cranmer—a plain, straightforward, and withal extremely attractive account of the Reformation in England. With regard to the relative excellence of these, we incline to the Luther. The simplicity and singleness of style which characterize Mrs. Lee's biography of Cranmer, would render it peculiarly the property of the young, were it not that the great amount of valuable historical information which it contains, as well as the fact that so little is generally known relative to the early history of the English Reformation, commend it equally to the perusal of older and graver students. But in the Luther, we have, in the best sense, a literary work, one in which ease of style, an almost romantic interest and accurate research, combine to invest it with that variety of excellence which the public taste at the present day requires of the historian and biographer. The works are neatly got up, with fair illustrations. In the same series we also find an illustrated edition of The Vicar of Wakefield. A curious proof of the exquisite simplicity and beauty of style which characterize this work, may be found in the fact, that throughout Germany, Scandinavia, and Italy, no English work is so well known or so extensively used in the study of our language.
Few American works have conferred on their writers a more respectable reputation than Mrs. Lee's Historical Sketches of the Old Painters. When we reflect on the important rôle which a knowledge of Art plays in a modern education, and that the time is evidently not distant when the Æsthetics will form as essential a portion of school courses as French or Algebra, we cannot be too grateful to one who has prepared such an eminently practical yet agreeable introduction to such studies. To the general reader who lacks the time or patience to work his way through the interminable works of Vasari, Kugler, or Lanzi, and who can be satisfied with an account of the most eminent painters, narrated in a concise yet highly interesting manner, this work must be invaluable.
We have looked over an edition of Young's Night Thoughts, edited by James Robert Boyd, and published by Mr. Scribner. It reminds us of that edition of Milton, by some eastern gentleman (there is a copy in the Harvard College library), in which "the versification is somewhat improved, and for better effect a few new figures are put in here and there." Except that memorable specimen of editorial silliness and sacrilege, we must confess—nay, we gladly confess—that we have never seen or heard of any thing worse than this very handsomely printed edition of Young's Night Thoughts. As the respectable publisher of it must have supposed Mr. Boyd possessed of some qualifications for the task undertaken by him, we will be a little more particular than is our wont, and convince him, and convince that part of the public which reads this magazine, that Mr. Boyd's edition of Young is an unendurable imposition. Dr. Young was a writer of singular naturalness of feeling and simplicity of style. As has frequently been observed of his works, lacking the romantic passion and fiery impulse which would commend them most to the tastes of middle life, they are the chosen companions of youth and age. There has scarcely ever been a poet who so little needed annotation; his "great argument," indeed, sometimes might be more easily apprehended if a little simplified by a clear-headed schoolman, but his verbal transparency is such that he needs, in this respect, no tinkering whatever. Yet Mr. Boyd makes nearly half his book of notes, and of notes, too, in which the great purpose of the poem is never touched—notes composed of mere platitudes, as useless, meaningless, and ridiculous, as would be the repetition of Swift's "nonsense verses" in the margin of every page. We copy at random a few examples:
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Note. "I wake." This expression suggested to the poet the expressive contrast, "How happy they who wake no more."
A mind that fain would wander from its woe.
Note. Fain: gladly.
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude.
Note. Teach, &c. Teach my best reason what is reasonable: cause the best actings of my intellectual powers to be more strictly conformed to what is reasonable, true, and fit.
We take no note of Time
But from its loss: to give it then a tongue.
Note. To give it then a tongue. To cause time to speak to us!
Here teems with revolutions every hour.
Note. Here, &c. On this earth every hour teems with revolutions!
I would not damp, but to secure, thy joys.
Note. But to secure, &c. But with a view to secure thy joys!
No moment, but in purchase of its worth.
Note. Of its worth: Of something equally valuable!
Nature, in zeal for human amity.
Note. In zeal for human amity: In the exercise of zeal for encouraging human friendship!
And so on through all the book—scarcely any thing but these miserable puerilities. There cannot be a child in the world to whom the poet's meaning would not be as plain from the text, as from such notes. In other cases, where the author is perfectly plain to nearly the meanest apprehensions, Mr. Boyd himself cannot understand him; for instance:
While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread,
What though my soul fantastic measures trod
O'er fairy fields, or mourned along the gloom
Of pathless woods, or, down the craggy steep
Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled flood.
The obvious idea in these last lines is, that, hurled down into a pool, battlemented, or mantled about, he swam with pain, seeing no egress up the craggy or precipitous rocks: a use of the word "mantled," which is justified by instances in many of the best ancient and modern writers. But Mr. Boyd reduces the lines to the poorest stuff by the following
Note. Mantled: Expanded, spread out, as a mantle.
An instance of his prosaic feebleness occurs on page 86.
Thought, busy thought, too busy for my peace.
Through the dark postern of long time elapsed,
Led softly, by the stillness of the night....
In quest of wretchedness perversely strays,
And finds all desert now, and meets the ghosts
Of my departed joys, a numerous train.
Note. Ghosts of my departed days: The bare recollection of them!
This is a new exhibition of the "art of sinking." The whole commentary suggests the idea of making a noble poem contemptible, by covering it over with diminutive conceits and bungling impertinences.
"Injustice to the South," is everywhere a fruitful subject of discussion. In politics, in religion, in letters, our friends beyond Washington will not believe us in the North capable of treating them with fairness. In literature we have constantly heard it alleged that success should never be dreamed of by an author who had the misfortune to be born the wrong side of Mason and Dixon's line. The superstition is not without its uses. It affords abundant consolation to a vast number of young gentleman whose books produce no profits. Yet we are inclined to believe it is altogether without any foundation in reason; that The Scarlet Letter would have been as popular from Charleston as from Concord. We have an amusing illustration of the feeling on this point, in the last Southern Literary Messenger. The amiable and eminently accomplished editor of that work counts among his personal friends as many northern gentlemen as have had ever opportunity to know him, yet he honestly believes us incapable of appreciating the genius of a poet from one of the tobacco, sugar, or cotton states. Introducing some pretty verses entitled The Marriage of the Sun and Moon, "by the late H. S. Ellenwood, of North Carolina," into his last number, he says:
"Had the gifted author been a native of Massachusetts, his name would be familiar as household words; as it is, we doubt whether one in ten of our readers has ever heard of it."
He was a native of Massachusetts. His original name was Small, and he was born in Salem, in the year of grace 1790; at sixteen apprenticed to J. T. Buckingham, of Boston; at twenty-one had his name changed to H. S. Ellenwood; in 1820 emigrated to North Carolina; and on the 2d of April, 1843, he died, in Wilmington, in that state, having just established there the Daily Advertiser. We suspect that, in literature at least, all charges of "injustice to the South," are as ill founded as this.
The American Gift Books for the present season surpass any hitherto published, both as regards literature and art. The Home Book of the Picturesque, published by Mr. Putnam, is the finest combination of all needful qualities for such a work, that has ever appeared in the English language. The late Fenimore Cooper (of whose admirable article we publish a large portion in preceding pages), Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, W. C. Bryant, N. P. Willis, Alfred B. Street, Bayard Taylor, and Dr. Bethune, are among the contributors, and Durand, Huntington, Cole, Cropsey, &c., furnish pictures, from the most striking, beautiful, and least-known scenery in America. The publishers of the world do not this year furnish a volume more admirable. The Book of Home Beauty, containing exquisitely engraved portraits of some of the most distinguished women in American society, by Charles Martin, with letter-press by Mrs. Kirkland, is another fine quarto; and The Memorial, an octavo, written by Nathanael Hawthorne, N. P. Willis, G. P. R. James, R. B. Kimball, Dr. Mayo, W. G. Simms, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Oakes Smith, and others, is very much above any "Keepsake" or "Souvenir" ever before printed in England or in America.
We have new volumes of Poems, by Messrs. Longfellow, Bayard Taylor, and R. H. Stoddard, from the press of Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, of which appropriate notices are deferred until the next month.
Messrs. Appleton have a series of works, equally remarkable for typographical and pictorial magnificence and literary interest. Christmas with the Poets is admitted to be, on the whole, the most admirably executed production of the printing press; The Women of Early Christianity, written by eminent authors, and edited by the Rev. Mr. Spencer, presents attractively the domestic romance of religious history, with seventeen very excellent engravings, making an imperial octavo, in the style of that remarkably popular series, the Women of the Bible, the Women of the Old and New Testament, and Our Saviour with Prophets and Apostles, all of which are now published in styles to suit the cabinet of art, the drawing-room table, or the library. Another very interesting and richly illustrated work from this house is The Land of Bondage, by Dr. Wainwright, corresponding with the same author's splendid volume, The Pathways and Abiding Places of Our Lord. The Appletons also publish for the coming holidays Mrs. Jameson's most successful work, the Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second, with twenty-one finely engraved portraits, and The Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland, with eighteen portraits—a work of which the fame is as extensive as a love of art or an admiration of woman; and Lyrics of the Heart, a very finely illustrated collection of the poems of Alaric A. Watts. The other illustrated works from this house are enumerated in the advertising pages at the end of this magazine, to which we ask attention.
[The Fine Arts.]
A series of four compositions representing the Seasons, by Calame, a Swiss artist, is highly praised in the Grenzboten, as something altogether original and superior to the technical traditions of the schools. They were painted for a Russian gentleman, and were exhibited for a short time in Berlin. Spring is an Italian or Grecian landscape of the antique world, and the time is morning; Summer is a German scene and the time noon; Autumn is from the lake country of Switzerland and the time late afternoon; Winter is a late evening scene with moonlight.
Mr. Harding's noble full-length of Daniel Webster—the best work of its class ever engraved in this country—may now be purchased at two dollars and a half per copy, of Sherman & Adriance, Astor House.
The celebrated Portrait of Bishop White, painted by Henry Inman, and engraved in London, by Wagstaff, is now published from the original plate, by Andrews and Meeser, of Philadelphia, at three dollars per copy. The impressions are quite as good as those first taken, which were sold for four times as large a price.
Norwegian Peasant Life, is the subject of ten pictures by Adolph Tiedemann, which a year since excited very general admiration at Düsseldorf. They have now been lithographed and published in that place, with explanatory text in German and Norwegian.
Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware, is universally conceded to be the best painting in the world, illustrating American history. Its production marks an era in American art. The exhibition of it, at the Stuyvesant Institute, is, of course, successful.
Kaulbach's frescoes in the New Museum at Berlin are to be engraved. The Prussian bookseller Duncker has undertaken the speculation, and intends that the engravings shall exceed everything yet done in Germany; not merely the pictures, but all the ornamental designs will be included.
The German papers announce that a colossal statue of Washington is casting at Munich. It is to be twenty feet higher than the famous Bavaria, and is destined for this country. Several other historical sculptures are in preparation for the United States.
[Historical Review of the Month.]
On the 4th of November the state election in New York resulted in the choice of all but two of the democratic candidates, and the defeat of the whigs on the great question respecting the canals. The closeness of the vote may be inferred from the majorities: For Controller, Wright over Patterson 527; Secretary of State, Randall over Forsyth 1420; Treasurer, Cook (whig) over Welch, 64; Attorney General, Chatfield over Ullmann, 294; Canal Commissioner, Fitzhugh (whig) over Wheaton, 745; State Engineer, McAlpine over Seymour, 2390. In New Jersey, on the same day, a large majority of the legislature was elected by the democrats. In Delaware, on the same day, it was determined to hold a convention for revising the constitution of the state, by 2,129 majority. In Louisiana, on the 3d, the whigs carried the legislature, and gained one member of Congress (Moore over Morse). In Wisconsin the whigs have elected Farwell, their candidate for Governor, and a majority of the legislature. Maryland, on the 5th, the entire democratic ticket, for comptroller, register, &c., was elected, with a majority of the legislature. In Michigan, the same day, the democrats, as usual, carried nearly every thing. In Massachusetts, on the 10th, there was a failure to elect a governor, but numerous vacancies to be filled in the legislature, it is supposed at this time (20th), will enable the whigs to succeed in that body. The vote was the largest ever thrown in the State. In Mississippi, Mr. Foote's majority is about 1500. In Tennessee, ex-Governor James C. Jones (whig), was elected to the United States Senate on the 14th. In Georgia, the new legislature assembled on the 3d, Governor Cobb was inaugurated on the 5th, and Mr. Toombs, now representative in Congress, was chosen United States Senator on the 10th. He is a Southern Rights Whig Unionist, and succeeds Mr. Burrien.
A correspondence has taken place between the Spanish minister at Washington and the Secretary of State, which, it is understood, assures a settlement of the difficulties arising from the invasion of Cuba; but additional discontent has been occasioned by the arrest, imprisonment, trial, and sentence (on the 12th of November), at Havana, of an American citizen, John G. Thrasher, for "disloyalty," to eight years hard labor in a Spanish fortress. Mr. Thrasher is a native of Maine, and had been for several years editor of the Faro Industrial, at Havana.
Judge Kane, in the Circuit Court of Pennsylvania, has given his decision in the Telegraph Case, sustaining Morse's pretensions throughout, and against Bain. The decision is in favor of Morse on all points, and establishes that he is solely entitled to the art of instantaneously recording messages at a distance. The case will now go to the Supreme Court, with probably the same result.
The great Methodist Episcopal Church case was decided on the 11th of November, in the United States District Court, in favor of the Southern claimants. The sum in dispute was $750,000—being the amount at which the Book Concern of the Society is estimated—and the decision gives to the Methodist Church South its proportion of this property.
In the United States District Court, at Philadelphia, on the 7th November, the Grand Jury presented seventy-eight indictments against thirty-nine of the participants in the riot at Christiana. Each of the accused is charged with high treason.
Efforts for the separation of California into new states are vigorously prosecuted. The latest intelligence from the mines is favorable. Oregon will probably come into the Union as two states.
There have been a great number of fatal accidents in the last few weeks, of which we can give but the results in loss of lives:
| Lives. | |
|---|---|
| Propeller Henry Clay, lost on Lake Erie, October 23, | 30 |
| Steamer Buckeye run into a sloop, Lake Erie, same day, | 3 |
| Steamer William Penn, off Cape Cod, struck sloop, same day, | 4 |
| Ship Oregon, sunk at sea lat. 36½, long. 69½, October 27, | 3 |
| Schooner Christiana, capsized, Lake Ontario, about the same time, | 9 |
| Schooner William Penn, lost about the same time, | Entire crew. |
| Embankment fell in at Spencerport, N. Y., November 11, | 3 |
| Accident at the Pyrotechnic establishment, Flatbush, November 3, | 2 |
| Cotton Factory, Philadelphia, burned November 12, | 6 |
| Small boat run down by a schooner, Boston Harbor, November 5, | 3 |
| Railroad engine-boiler, burst at Aiken, S.C., November 14, | 3 |
| Collision on the New-York and New Haven Railroad, October 25, | 2 |
| Alarm of fire, in Public School, No. 26, in New-York, causing a rush of children toward the great stairway, of which the railing gave way, November 20, | 46 |
On the 21st October, a serious difficulty broke out at Chagres, between the American and native boatmen, and a battle ensued, which resulted in the death of two Americans, and as many natives. After two days' disturbance, the affair was adjusted, and order restored.
In Mexico, for the present, the insurrection of Caravajal has failed, and the siege of Matamoras has been abandoned. In New Grenada the Jesuit revolt under Borrero has been put down and Borrero captured. From Buenos Ayres we learn that General Oribe has been overthrown, and that Rosas is in the utmost danger, but the results of recent important events there are not yet well understood.
Little has occurred in Great Britain, of much importance, except the demonstrations occasioned by the arrival of Kossuth, at Southampton, on the 23d of October. The Hungarian chief has been received with unparalleled enthusiasm in Southampton, London, Manchester, and elsewhere, and in many long and powerful speeches has vindicated his great reputation for wisdom and for honest devotion to the liberties of his country. He was to leave England in the steamer Washington, for New-York, on the 14th November, and will probably have arrived here before this paragraph is published. In the United States a triumph even more enthusiastic than that in England awaits him. The Caffre war in South Africa is still extending, and the British forces have obtained, in no case, decided or important advantages.
The attention of Europe is more than ever concentrated on France. Louis Napoleon, who had deprived the nation of the right of suffrage, in despair of reëlection by any other means finally determined on the abrogation of the restricting law of the 31st of May; his ministers resigned; after a considerable period a new ministry, with little weight of personal character, was formed; and on the 4th of November the new session of the French Legislative Assembly was opened in Paris, to receive the President's Message, and at once to vote down its cardinal recommendations. The world watching with deep interest that conflict of the factions in France which must be brought to a close with the present term of her unscrupulous ruler.
[Recent Deaths.]
Archibald Alexander, D.D., LL. D., late Professor of Theology in the Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, in New Jersey, was born on the 17th of April, 1772, on the banks of a small tributary of the James River, called South River, and near the western foot of the Blue Ridge, in that part of Augusta County, Virginia, which has since, from the great natural curiosity it contains, been named Rockbridge. He was descended by both parents from Presbyterians of Scotland, who emigrated first to Ireland, and thence to America. He was educated at Liberty Hall Academy, which has since become Washington College, under the instructions of the founder of that institution, Rev. William Graham, an able and eminent preacher and professor. Besides Mr. Graham, his classical teachers were James Priestly, afterward President of Cumberland College, Tennessee, and Archibald Roane, afterward Governor of Tennessee. In the summer of 1789, he joined in the full communion of the church, and commenced the study of theology under Mr. Graham, who had a class of six or eight students. He was licensed to preach by this Presbytery of Lexington, October 1, 1791, and was ordained on the 5th of May, 1795. Part of the intervening years he spent in itinerant labors in Virginia, and in that region which is now Ohio. In the spring of 1797 he became President of Hampden Sydney College, in the County of Prince Edward, at the same time being pastor of the churches of Briery and Cumberland. He was now but twenty-five years old, and it may safely be alleged that there was never won in this country, at so early an age, a more brilliant or a purer reputation. His arduous and responsible duties were discharged with industry and energy, equal to his abilities, until health gave way, and, in the spring of 1801, he resigned these charges, in well-grounded apprehension of a settled pulmonary consumption. The summer of 1802 was spent by Mr. Alexander in travelling on horseback through New England, and by this means he so far recovered his health as to resume the Presidency of the College and the charge of his parishes. About the same time he was married to Janette Waddell, second daughter of Rev. Jonas Waddell, D.D., that remarkable preacher whose blindness and eloquence have been celebrated by Mr. Wirt in The British Spy. In the Autumn of 1806 he received a call from the Third Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Pine and Fourth-sts., in Philadelphia. Though he had declined an invitation to the same church ten years before, he accepted this, and thus became a second time the successor of the Rev. John Blair Smith, D.D. He continued at this post until, in the spring of 1812, he was summoned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to be the first Professor in the Theological Seminary then just founded at Princeton. This chair, we believe, he occupied until his death—until within a few weeks, at least, discharging all its honorable duties. It is a pleasing fact that the first two Professors in this Institution were associated in its service nearly forty years. During this period a large number of clergymen have proceeded from the seminary, and it has now not far from one hundred and fifty students. It is important to observe that it has no connection with the College of New Jersey, at the same place. The eminent usefulness of Dr. Alexander is not to be measured by the long and wise discharge of his duties as a professor. He was a voluminous, very able and popular writer. In addition to occasional sermons and discourses, and numerous smaller treatises, he wrote constantly for The Princeton Review, a quarterly miscellany of literature, and theological and general learning, of the highest character, which is now in the twenty-seventh year of its publication. His work on The Evidences of the Christian Religion has passed through numerous editions in Great Britain as well as in America, and this, as well as his Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, which has also been republished abroad, we believe, has appeared in two or three other languages. The substance of the latter has, however, been incorporated with more recent editions of the former, under the title of Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, of which a fifth edition—the last we have seen—was published in Philadelphia in 1847. Among his other works are Thoughts on Religion; a Compend of Bible Truth; and a History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa—the last an octavo volume of more than six hundred pages, published in Philadelphia in 1846. His principal writings, however, have been on practical religion and on the History and Biography of the Church, and these for the most part have been published anonymously. Dr. Alexander was the father of six sons, of whom three are clergymen. The eldest, James W. Alexander, D.D., for several years Professor in the College of New Jersey, and sometime Pastor of the Duane-street Church in this city, is a fine scholar and an able preacher, and has enrolled himself among the benefactors of the people by many writings of the highest practical value designed to elevate the condition of the laboring classes to the true dignity of citizenship and a Christian life. Another is Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and author of the well-known works on the Earlier and the Later Prophecies of Isaiah. He is generally regarded as one of the most profound and sagacious scholars of the present age. The late venerable Professor was undoubtedly one of those who, by the union of a most Christian spirit and a faultless life to great abilities, have been deserving of the praise of doing most for the advancement of true religion.
Dr. J. Kearney Rogers, for a long time one of the most able and respected physicians and surgeons of New-York, died on the 9th of November. He was born in New-York in 1793, graduated at Princeton in 1811, studied medicine in Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and returning to New York was the friend and associate of Dr. Post, Dr. Hossack, Dr. Francis, Dr. Delafield, and other eminent members of his profession, in establishing medical and surgical institutions, &c. He has left no writings in print or MS. for the public.
The Rev. William Croswell, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Advent, in Boston, died in that city very suddenly, on the evening of Sunday, November 9, having preached and administered the sacrament of baptism during the day. Dr. Croswell was born in New-Haven, Connecticut, on the 7th of November, 1804, was the son of the Rev. Dr. Croswell of that city, and was educated at Yale College, where he was graduated in the summer of 1824. He was subsequently, for two years, associated with Dr. Doane, now Bishop of New Jersey, in the editorship of the Episcopal Watchman at Hartford, after which he removed to Boston, and was for several years minister of Christ's Church, in that city. He then became rector of St. Peter's, in Auburn, New York, and at length returned to Boston, where his numerous warm friends gladly welcomed his settlement as minister of the Church of the Advent. Dr. Croswell was a scholar, and possessed a fine taste in literature, with very unusual powers as a writer. Among his poems, are many of remarkable grace and sweetness, and a few evincing a happy vein of satire. His poems are nearly all religious, and Bishop Doane, in a note to his edition of Keble's "Christian Year," remarks that "he has more unwritten poetry in him" than any man he knows. We hope Bishop Doane will commemorate his friendship, and the genius and virtues of Dr. Croswell, in a memoir, and collection of his works.
Dr. Granville Sharpe Pattison, an eminent teacher of anatomy, died in New York, after a short illness, on the 12th of November, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was born near Glasgow, in Scotland, where his father was a cotton spinner, and was educated in that city, studying surgery under the late eminent Professor John Burns. On obtaining his degree, he commenced the practice of his profession in Glasgow, with prospects of eminent success, and soon became one of the surgeons of the Andersonian Institution, and a lecturer on anatomy. An unfortunate domestic affair, of which the details may be learned from the report of a trial which resulted in the divorce of Prof. Andrew Ure from his wife, in 1819, caused Dr. Pattison to come to the United States. He settled in Baltimore, where he resumed his profession as a lecturer on anatomy; and, going afterwards to England, he became a professor in the medical school connected with the London University. He continued but a short time in England, and on returning to this country he accepted the place of Professor of Anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, which he filled successfully until 1840, when he was made Professor of Anatomy in the Medical School connected with the New-York University—an office which he held until his death, having delivered his last lecture but a week before that event. Dr. Pattison was a man of fine social qualities, and was one of the best lecturers in this country. His published writings display the best capacities for his vocation—are shrewd, judicious, and happily delivered—but for the most part fragmentary. His editions of Cruveilhier's Anatomy of the Human Body, Mase's Anatomical Atlas, and other works, are well known, and he wrote many important papers in the American Medical Recorder, besides several pamphlets of a personal character.
Mr. Stephens, the author of "Martinuzzi," and the "Manuscripts of Erdely," died on the 8th of October, in Camden-town. He was in his fifty-first year, and, in early life, had produced several tragic dramas that commanded the attention of critics, both foreign and native. Schlegel abroad, and "minor Beddoes" at home, praised his tragedies of "Montezuma" and the "Vampire;" and, at a later period, his "Gertrude and Beatrice" excited, among the few who take an interest in dramatic poetry, great admiration. His last work consisted of "Dramas for the Stage," in two volumes, but it was only privately circulated. Mr. Stephens' dramatic poetry was distinguished by intense passion and fervor; but at the early part of his career, he lacked the constructive power. Finding that the stage monopoly, so long existing, was an effectual bar to the higher original drama being produced, he joined, about the year 1841, a guild of zealous literary young men, who were bent on doing something towards theatrical reform. Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps united themselves to these dramatic aspirants; and the result was, that the Lyceum Theatre was taken for a month, for the performance of a new five-act tragedy, notwithstanding the existing law to the contrary. The tragedy was licensed as an opera in three acts, and was at length acted with some of the songs retained. This retention of musical irrelevancies, in obedience to the law, while it made the law itself absurd, could not fail of injuring the drama in which they were introduced; and, had its merits not been extraordinary, "Martinuzzi," under such circumstances, could not have lived a single night. As it was, it struggled through the month, making partisans to the experiment, though at the sacrifice of the author's means and feelings. Mr. Stephens accepted the martyrdom freely, and went through it nobly, for the sake of the cause which to his death he held sacred. Moreover, he would have continued the contest, but that he was strongly advised to the contrary by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, and Mr. John A. Heraud, the latter of whom had been actively engaged in getting up "Martinuzzi," but thought that sufficient demonstration had been made. In this he was right, as it subsequently proved; for, shortly after, in conjunction with Mr. Edward Mayhew and some other gentlemen, he was a party to the drawing up, in committee, of a bill for the liberation of the stage, the draft of which was forwarded to Sir Robert Peel, who placed it in the hands of Lord Mahon, by whom it was carried through Parliament; and thus every theatre was enabled legally to perform the Shakspearian and five-act drama. Mr. George Stephens himself, sick of dramatic disappointment, turned his ardent mind into a new channel, and became involved in railway speculations, and in them lost his fortune. His latter days were accordingly passed in narrow circumstances, accompanied with physical prostration quite deplorable. They who had benefited by his exertions, neglected him. His love for the drama and power of composition remained uninjured, but encouragement attached itself to younger candidates. His high principle, determined courage, personal pride and fortitude, however, continued with him to the last; and as he was a pious and religious man, he bore suffering and neglect not only with patience, but with confidence that the good cause in which he had labored would ultimately prosper.
The celebrated missionary Charles Gutzlaff, of whom we gave an interesting account in the International last year (vol. i. 317), died at Canton on the 9th of August, in the forty-eighth year of his age. He was born on the 8th of July, 1803, at Pyritz, in the Prussian province of Pomerania, of parents whose very moderate circumstances prevented them from affording him the education requisite for a Christian missionary, to become which was his most anxious desire. After attending for some time the schools of his native town, he was sent to Stettin as an apprentice to a belt-maker. There he composed a short poem, in which he expressed his strong religious feelings, with his hitherto unavailing wishes respecting his career in life, and which he presented to the king of Prussia, on occasion of a visit paid by the latter to Stettin, in 1821. The effect of this step was to procure his admission as a pupil into the missionary institution at Berlin. Such was the progress which he made in his studies, that only two years afterwards, in the spring of the year 1823, he was judged to be sufficiently qualified for the object he had in view. He was sent to the Dutch Missionary Society at Rotterdam, which appointed him to be one of their missionaries to the East. But becoming more than ever sensible of the arduousness of the functions he had undertaken to perform, he did not venture to embark for his destination until the month of August, 1826, having devoted himself, in the mean time, to a further diligent preparation for future usefulness. The first missionary ground assigned him was in the island of Java. He took up his residence at Batavia, where he married an English woman who was possessed of considerable property, and where, by mingling with the Chinese inhabitants, in the course of two years he acquired so skilful a use of their language, and became so intimately acquainted with their modes of life and intercourse with each other, as to be adopted by them into one of their families, and to have a Chinese name assigned to him. The circumstances just mentioned produced an important change in his plans. In the possession, as he now was, of a pecuniary independence, he resolved to break off his connection with the Dutch missionary society, and to proceed to China, to preach the gospel to the Chinese in their own country, to the extent that he might be allowed to do so. In the first place, however, he accompanied an English missionary, named Tomlin, to Siam, in the summer of 1828. This journey occupied Gutzlaff for a period of upwards of three years. Besides laboring diligently in his vocation as a Christian minister, he composed, while residing at Bankok, a Siamese grammar, and, in conjunction with Tomlin, translated the New Testament into the Siamese language. He next proceeded to China, where, associating himself with Morrison, Medhurst, and other European missionaries, he selected Macao for his principal station. He established schools, distributed religious tracts among the people, assisted in a new translation of the Bible into Chinese, co-operated with Morrison in founding a society for the diffusion of useful knowledge in China, published a Chinese Monthly Magazine, and yet did not neglect, at Macao, and in various excursions made from that place, the preaching of Christianity to the inhabitants. All this went on without any hindrance, until Gutzlaff excited the suspicion of the Chinese authorities of his labors being in some way connected with the interested views of the English traders; and, in consequence, an attempt made by him in May, 1835, to penetrate into the province of Fokien, proved altogether unsuccessful. The printing of Chinese books of a Christian character was now forbidden; the distribution of such books was obliged to be suspended; and it became necessary to remove the printing presses from Macao to Singapore. Thus restricted in his missionary sphere, Gutzlaff felt himself the more at liberty to accompany the British expedition against China, and to be exceedingly serviceable to it by his intimate acquaintance with the language and customs of the Chinese. He was also an active agent in bringing about the treaty of peace, concluded between the contending parties in 1842.
His literary labors have had an almost incredible extent and variety. He himself gives the following enumeration of his writings: "In Dutch I have written: a History of our Mission and of Distinguished Missionaries, and an appeal for support of the Missionary Work; in German: Sketches of the Minor Prophets; in Latin: the Life of our Savior; in English: Sketches of Chinese History; China Opened; Life of Kanghe, together with a great number of articles on the Religion, History, Philosophy, Literature and Laws of the Chinese; in Siamese: a Translation of the New Testament, with the Psalms, and an English-Siamese Dictionary, English Cambodian Dictionary and English-Laos Dictionary. These works I left to my successors to finish, but with the exception of the Siamese Dictionary they have added nothing to them. In Cochin-Chinese: a Complete Dictionary of Cochin-Chinese-English and English-Cochin-Chinese; this work is not yet printed. In Chinese: Forty Tracts, along with three editions of the Life of our Savior; a Translation of the New Testament, the third edition of which I have carried through the press. Of the Translations of the Old Testament, the Prophets and the two first books of Moses are completed. In this language I have also written The Chinese Scientific Monthly Review, a History of England, a History of the Jews, a Universal History and Geography, on Commerce, a Short Account of the British Empire and its Inhabitants, as well as a number of smaller articles. In Japanese: a Translation of the New Testament, and of the first book of Moses, two tracts, and several scientific pamphlets. The only paper to which I now send communications is the Hong-Kong Gazette, the whole Chinese department of which I have undertaken. Till 1842 I wrote for the Chinese Archives."
The last year Mr. Gutzlaff spent in Europe, and he had recently completed some important works, to be added to the above list, respecting Chinese affairs and civilization, one of which is a life of the late Chinese Emperor, with whom the missionary appears to have had a more intimate personal acquaintance than was ever yielded to any other European. The family of Mr. Gutzlaff lately travelled some time in the United States, where they were well received in religious circles, and Mr. Gutzlaff himself felt some disappointment that unlooked-for duties in Germany prevented him from extending his tour to the Churches and Universities of this country. A careful investigation will show that his long and faithful labors have had a powerful influence in favor of Christianity in China.
The once powerful and celebrated Don Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace, Duke of Alcudia, &c., died in Paris on the 4th of October. He was born at Badejoz, of a noble family, in 1767, at seventeen years of age he entered the Royal Guards, and being soon after taken into high favor by the queen Maria Louisa, of Parma, he became at the end of the last and beginning of the present century, a prominent actor in the most important political events of Spain, of which country, for a time, he was Minister and absolute ruler. His conduct was the proximate cause of the Spanish war with Napoleon. Prince Ferdinand (afterwards Ferdinand VII.), tired of the thraldom in which he was kept by his mother and her Minister, applied for protection to Napoleon; and Godoy, discovering that he had done so, accused him of a conspiracy to dethrone his father. This led to the most scandalous scenes. A revolt broke out at Aranjuez, and Godoy nearly lost his life. Charles IV. abdicated, and Ferdinand assumed the sceptre, but the Imperial ruler of France would not permit him to hold it. Napoleon took the crown of Spain for his own family, and the terrible Peninsular war was the result. The consequence, meanwhile, to Godoy, was the loss of his wealth and honors, and his residence in foreign lands for nearly the remainder of his life. In 1847 the Spanish Minister published a decree, authorizing Godoy, by his inferior title of Duke of Alcudia, to return to Spain; and ordering that a certain portion of his once vast property should be restored. The latter part of the decree was acted upon, however, in the same manner as such restitution's are generally made in Spain. The only income of Godoy continued to be an allowance by one of his children. Whatever may have been the conduct of this singular politician half a century ago, those who knew him in his old age could not but admire in him a fine specimen of the Castilian gentleman. To the very last he was remarkable for the elegance of his manners, and high-bred courtesy. In conversation he was most agreeable. The world, too, should be charitable to his memory. Years of embarrassment, exile, poverty, and obscurity, have done much to atone for the faults committed in a time of sudden and intoxicating exaltation, and of unbounded power by him who was then a Prince, Prime Minister, and despot of Spain, but who has died, with the weight of eighty-seven years upon him, a quiet, inoffensive, and forgotten man, in a retired lodging at Paris.
George Baker, the historian of Northamptonshire, was born and brought up at Northampton. To him and his gifted sister, Miss Baker, his native country is deeply indebted. Mr. Baker produced his learned and comprehensive History of Northamptonshire, at great expense of money and time, and at great loss to himself. The book ranks in the very first grade of topographical literature, and is remarkable for the perfection of its genealogical details. Unfortunately, the work is left unfinished, owing to the ill health of its author and his want of funds. This amiable and excellent author and man died at Northampton, on the 12th of October, in his seventy-first year.
M. de Savigny, member of the Academy of Sciences, and known for his works on zoology, died in October, at Versailles, at an advanced age.
Dr. Thomas Wingard, Archbishop of Upsal and Primate of Sweden, died at Upsal, on the 24th September, aged seventy. He had for nine years occupied the chair of Sacred Philology at Lund, when in 1819 he succeeded his father in the see of Götheborg. In 1839, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Upsal. In 1835, he assisted in the establishment of the Swedish Missionary Society, on which occasion he fraternized with the Methodists at Stockholm. He also addressed a letter to the Evangelical Alliance, at its last meeting, regretting his inability to attend. He has left to the University of Upsal his library, consisting of upwards of 34,000 volumes, and his rich collection of coins and medals, and of Scandinavian antiquities. This is the fourth library bequeathed to the University of Upsal within the space of a year, adding to its book-shelves no fewer than 115,000 volumes. The entire number of volumes possessed by the University is now said to be 288,000, 11,000 of these being in manuscript.
The theatrical architect, dramatic writer, and novelist, Samuel Beaseley, died suddenly, on the 23d of October, at his residence, Tonbridge Castle, Kent, in his sixty-sixth year, of apoplexy. He was born in London, and early attached himself to art, letters, and the stage. The private and public buildings which he was the architect of are numerous. Among his productions as an author may be mentioned his novels The Roué and The Oxonians, and his farces of Old Customs, Bachelors' Wives, Jealous on all Sides, and Is he Jealous? Mr. Beaseley's merits as an architect were generally acknowledged; and, although he lived with great generosity, his talents and industry enabled him to realize a considerable fortune.
Mr. H. P. Borrell, a numismatist of great practical experience and profound judgment, enjoyed for the last quarter of a century, deserved celebrity as a distinguished collector of medals and cultivator of the knowledge of them. He was the author of many of the most important contributions on unedited autonomous and imperial Greek coins which have appeared during his time in the transactions of most of the antiquarian societies in Europe, and especially in Great Britain. Many of Mr. Borrell's important coins have passed, at different times, into the collections of our British Museum, and of eminent private individuals. Mr. Borrell's work on the coins of the Kings of Cyprus affords an example of his laborious numismatical researches. Mr. Borrell died at Smyrna, on the 2d of October.
Rev. James Endell Tyler, B. D., of London, was a native of Monmouth, and became a distinguished student and a fellow of of Oriel College, Oxford. On a particular occasion, he happened to attract the attention of Lord Liverpool, then Premier, who, after inquiring, presented him with the living of St. Giles-in-the-fields. This cure he filled actively and ably. To the stall in St. Paul's he was, without his asking, presented by the late Sir Robert Peel, "to mark," as the Minister said, "his sense of Mr. Tyler's exertions in the cause of education at Oxford, and of his exemplary discharge of his onerous duties at St. Giles's." As an author, Mr. Tyler gained some celebrity. His Life of King Henry V. attracted much attention.
Emma Martin, a woman well known as a writer, and as an exemplar of Socialism, died on the 8th of October, at Finchley Common, near London, in the 39th year of her age. The London Leader, the organ of the British Socialists, says, that, "allied to a husband (found in the religious circle in which she was reared in Bristol) whose company it was a humiliation to endure, she ultimately, even when she was the mother of three children, refused to continue to submit to it. This, though afterwards made a reproach to her, was so justifiable, that even her religious friends found no fault with it. After much struggling to support her children unaided, she was united to another husband (Mr. Joshua Hopkins), her former one yet living. Though no marriage ceremony was performed, or could be performed (such is the moral state of our law, which denies divorce to all who are wronged, if they happen to be also indigent), yet no affection was ever purer, no union ever more honorable to both parties, and the whole range of priest-made marriages never included one to which happiness belonged more surely, and upon which respect could dwell more truly. Our first knowledge of Mrs. Martin," continues the Leader, "was as an opponent of Socialism, against which she delivered public lectures. But as soon as she saw intellectual truth in it, she paused in her opposition to it. Long and serious was the conflict the change in her convictions caused her; but her native love of truth prevailed, and she came over to the advocacy of that she had so resolutely and ably assailed. And none who ever offered us alliance, rendered us greater service, or did it at greater cost. Beautiful in expression, quick in wit, strong in will, eloquent in speech, coherent in conviction, and of stainless character, she was incomparable among public women. She was one of the few among the early advocates of English Socialism who saw that the conflict against religion could not be confined to an attack on forms of faith—to a mere comparison of creeds; and she attached only secondary importance to the abuses of Christianity, where she saw that the whole was an abuse of history, of reason, and of morality. Thus she was cut off from all hope or sympathy from her former connections, and she met with but limited friendships among her new allies. She saw further than any around her what the new communism would end in. She saw that it would establish the healthy despotism of the affections, in lieu of the factitious tyrannies of custom and Parliament. The nature of her opinions, which arose in conviction and not in antagonism, will best be seen in two passages from her writings, at two remarkable periods of her life. In 1835, she wrote in the Bristol Literary Magazine, which she edited:—
"'Infidelity is the effusion of weak minds, and the resource of guilty ones. Like the desolating Simoom of the desert, it withers every thing within its reach; and as soon as it has prostrated the morality of the individual, it invades the civil rights of society.'
"In 1844, in the seventh of her Weekly Addresses to the Inhabitants of London, of which it was the thirty-sixth thousand issued, she said:—
"'When Christianity arose, it gathered to its standard the polished Greek, the restless Roman, the barbarous Saxon; but it was suited only to the age in which it grew. It had anathemas for the bitter-hearted to hurl at those they chose to designate God's enemies. It had promises for the hopeful, cautions for the prudent, charity for the good. It was all things to all men. It became the grand leader of the ascetic to the convent—of the chivalrous to the crusade—of the cruel to the Star Chamber—of the scholar to the secret midnight cell, there to feed on knowledge, but not to impart it. But at length its contentional doctrines bade men look elsewhere for peace—for some less equivocal morality, some clearer doctrines, some surer truth.'
"In this belief she lived, worked, taught, and in this belief she died. And in passing to the kingdom of the inscrutable future, whose credentials could she better take than those she had won by her courage and truthfulness? Could she take Pagan, Buddhist, Mahommedan, Christian, or some morose sectarian shade; credentials soiled with age, torn in strifes, stained with blood?... Will any who calumniate the last hours of Freethinkers utter the pious fraud over this narrow bed, and the memory of Emma Martin be distorted, as have been those of Voltaire and our own Paine? Does the apparition of these outrages glare upon this grave—outrages too ignoble to notice, too painful to recognize? Heed them not—believe them not. Let not the Christian insult her whom only the grave has vanquished. Let him not utter the word of triumph over the dead, before whom living his coward tongue would falter. Let his manliness teach him truth if his creed has failed to teach him courtesy. As a worker for human improvement, Mrs. Martin was as indefatigable as efficient. From the time when she published her Exiles of Piedmont, to the issue of her essay on God's Gifts and Man's Duties, and later still, she wrote with ardor, always manifesting force of personal thought, and what is more unusual in the writings of women—strength and brevity of expression. Her lectures were always distinguished by the instruction they conveyed, and the earnestness with which they were delivered. In courage of advocacy and thoroughness of view, no woman except Frances Wright is to be compared with her; and only one, whose name is an affectionate household word in our land (greater, indeed, in order of power), resembles Mrs. Martin in largeness and sameness of speculation, and the capacity to treat womanly and social questions. Mrs. Martin had a strength of will which rules in all spheres, but ever chastened by womanly feeling. Her affectionate nature as much astonished those who knew her in private, as her resolution often astonished those who knew her in public. Indeed, she was the most womanly woman of all the advocates of "Woman's Rights." Her assertion of her claim to interfere in public affairs was but a means of winning security from outrage for the domestic affections. She would send the mother into the world—not in the desertion of motherly duties, but to learn there what motherly duties are—not to submit in ignorance to suckle slaves, but to learn how to rear free men and intelligent and pure women."
We have copied thus much of the Leader's obituary of Mrs. Martin, because a certain unpremeditated boldness in it admits the reader to instructive facts in the theory and practice of the party to which she belonged.
Yar Mohammed, the celebrated Vizier of Herat, is reported to have died on the 4th June last. He was one of the most intriguing princes in Asia. Everybody must remember him during the few years which preceded the occupation of Affghanistan by the English. He always managed to keep on the friendliest terms with them and more than one mission was sent to his court from India.
The well-known composer of ballads, &c., Alexander Lee, died near London, suddenly on the 8th of October. He was a son of the once notorious boxer, Henry Lee, and was married to the late popular singer, Mrs. Waylett. He at one period was lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, in partnership with Captain Polhill. He had been Musical Director of the Olympic and Strand Theatres, of Vauxhall Gardens, &c. He wrote the music for the Invincibles, which had such a run, with Madame Vestris in the chief part, at Covent Garden, and afterwards at the American Theatres. To name his ballads would occupy a large space, for a more prolific song-writer never existed. We may mention, however, amongst his works, The Soldier's Tear; Away, away to the mountain's brow; Come where the aspens quiver; I'll be no submissive wife; Rise, gentle moon; Kate Kearney; Come dwell with me; Pretty star of night; I've plucked the fairest flower; Bird of love; Meet me in the willow glen; I'm o'er young to marry yet; Wha wad na fight for Charlie; When the dew is on the grass; Down where the blue bells, &c. Many of these compositions will perpetuate the name of Alexander Lee as a composer of the English school of simple and unaffected melody. We are inclined to believe, more of his songs than those of any other composer are known in the United States.
Prince Frederick William Charles, of Prussia, died at Berlin on the 28th September. He was a brother of the late Frederick William the Third, uncle of the present King, and the youngest legitimate son of Frederick William the Second. He was born at Potsdam on the 3d of July, 1783. He served actively in the army during the war with France, which terminated so disastrously at the battle of Jena. He was also present at the battles of Katzbach and Leipsic, and subsequently at Waterloo commanded the reserve cavalry of the fourth corps of the Prussians.
[Gentlemen's and Ladies' Fashions for December.]
In the fashionable world of this country we have at length the long-expected "hat of the future," from the ingenious artist Genin, who appears to be the only American who brings to the manufacture of hats an inventive faculty. It is likely that these hats will gradually take the place of the funnel and stove-pipe styles which have been so long in vogue. They are made of fine material, are light, pliable, durable, and have the more important merit of elegant and picturesque appearance. They are indifferently styled the Union Hat, and the Grandison Hat—the last name referring to the ideal of Queen Anne's days.
It is much doubted whether any of the changes made in gentlemen's costume in the last half century are improvements, and there are very few persons of taste who will approve the hat of the last few years more than that worn in the good old times of General Washington, when the three-cornered chapeau began to give place to such hats its are represented in our illustration.
The next is somewhat more in vogue, at least for younger men, and for the opera and the theatre. It sets off a fine-looking face advantageously.
The last is better suited for travelling or hunting.
In Ladies' Fashions, there are some novelties, though comparatively few of a kind to attract a large degree of attention. We select for illustration in the first place—
Close Under-sleeve.—This sleeve will be found to be of a very desirable form by ladies who object to the open sleeves, as it combines the elegant effect of the latter with the comfort of the close sleeve. It may be made either in muslin or net, and is cut as a bishop's sleeve, the fulness being confined on a band at the wrist. Two broad frills of lace or needlework are attached to the lower part of the sleeve. These frills are open in front of the arm.
Under-sleeve of Lace.—This sleeve is intended to be worn for evening dress. The double row of vandyked lace forming the trimming should drop below the sleeve of the dress, under which the lace sleeve is to be worn.
Among the most striking and beautiful articles in the way of Mantillas, is the Talma, represented in the following engraving. The capuche is formed on the model of those worn by the celebrated monks of St. Francis, and the tout ensemble is very graceful and beautiful. The entire design is very well exhibited in the illustration. The Talmas are made of velvet, silk, satin, and fine cloth. They have been introduced in New-York by Mr. Bulpin, of Broadway.
The jacket and waistcoat described in our last have a certain currency, but are not likely to be universally adopted. The above costumes, from the latest modes received from Paris, are in the main conservative, and the engraving is so distinctive that the figures scarcely need description.
Black now becomes indispensable in the toilettes of ladies of fashion; formerly it was exclusively reserved for days of mourning, A black dress does not interfere with the robes of varied colors, and the materials are rich and in good taste. Jet, in fringes or lace, is worn with all materials. Upon moire or satin, deep flounces of chantilly or ruches of lace, placed en tablier, are much worn; taffetas flounces are cut and stamped in patterns, or covered with narrow velvets imitating embroidery. For mantelets, and every species of outside garments, black will more generally perhaps than ever before prevail; and rich furs will have their old prominence for trimming, particularly for garments of velvet. Fine and heavy plushes are also being rather largely manufactured for such purposes.
There is scarcely any change perceptible in the shape of bonnets, most of the new ones being of the form which has been generally worn for some time; yet there is a slight modification of that shape in bonnets made expressly for the winter. The front is somewhat less wide and open, and the bavolet, being rather narrower, droops less at the back of the head. Of the various materials likely to be employed for bonnets during the coming winter, none will be more fashionable than velvet. Among the velvet bonnets we notice one of violet-colored velvet trimmed with bows of the same, intermingled with black lace and jet beads. The inside trimming consists of velvet pansies, of the natural color of the flowers, having yellow centres. With the flowers are combined a few loops of velvet ribbon of a rich yellow tint, matching the centre of the flowers. Another bonnet, composed of dark blue therry velvet, is trimmed with ribbon, striped with blue and orange. This bonnet is ornamented in the inside with white flowers.
A Russian winter riding habit is described as very simple but costly, having a bonnet or hat of sables or other furs, setting on the head very much like a chancellor's full wig, and secured by a richly gemmed bracelet under the chin. The close coat, and light and flowing mantle nearly concealing it, are of black or other dark-colored velvet. This will be in vogue probably only in the intensest severity of the cold season. Black cloth, embroidered, is used for the same purpose.
Transcriber's Notes:
Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.
On p. [683] the author's name is given as Pisistratus Caxton. However, the contents list the author as Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. The table of contents was correct so changed the reference on p. [683].
P. [636] corrected typo in Greek text.