Literary Notices.
Rural Hours, by A Lady, published by G.P. Putnam, is an admirable volume, the effect of which is like a personal visit to the charming scenes which the writer portrays with such a genuine passion for nature, and so much vivacity and truthfulness of description. Without the faintest trace of affectation, or even the desire to present the favorite surroundings of her daily life in overdone pictures, she quietly jots down the sights and sounds, and odorous blossomings of the seasons as they pass, and by this intellectual honesty and simplicity, has given a peculiar charm to her work, which a more ambitious style of composition would never have been able to command. Her eye for nature is as accurate as her enthusiasm is sincere. She dwells on the minute phenomena of daily occurrence in their season with a just discrimination, content with clothing them in their own beauty, and never seeking to increase their brilliancy by any artificial gloss. Whoever has a love for communing with nature in the “sweet hour of prime,” or in the “still twilight,” for watching the varied glories of the revolving year, will be grateful to the writer of this picturesque volume for such a fragrant record of rural experience. The author is stated to be a daughter of Cooper, the distinguished American novelist, and she certainly exhibits an acuteness of observation, and a vigor of description, not unworthy of her eminent parentage.
A new edition of the Greek and English Lexicon, by Professor Edward Robinson (Harper and Brothers) will be received with lively satisfaction by the large number of Biblical students in this country and in England who are under such deep obligations to the previous labors of Dr. Robinson in this department of philology. The work exhibits abundant evidence of the profound and discriminating research, the even more than German patience of labor, the rigid impartiality, and the rare critical acumen for which the name of the author is proverbial wherever the New-Testament Lexicography is made the object of earnest study. Since the publication of the first edition, fourteen years since, which was speedily followed by three rival editions in Great Britain, and two abridgments, the science of Biblical philology has made great progress; new views have been developed by the learned labors of Wahl, Bretschneider, Winer, and others; the experience of the author in his official duties for the space of ten years, had corrected and enlarged his own knowledge; he had made a personal exploration of many portions of the Holy Land; and under these circumstances, when he came to the revision of the work, he found that a large part of it must be re-written, and the remainder submitted to such alterations, corrections, and improvements, as were almost as laborious as the composition of a new Lexicon. The plan of the work in its present enlarged form, embraces the etymology of each word given—the logical deduction of all its significations, which occur in the New Testament—the various combinations of verbs and adjectives—the different forms and inflections of words—the interpretation of difficult passages—and a reference to every passage of the New Testament in which the word is found. No scholar can examine the volume, without a full conviction of the eminent success with which this comprehensive plan has been executed, and of the value of the memorial here presented to the accuracy and thoroughness of American scholarship. The practical use of the work will be greatly facilitated by the clearness and beauty of the Greek type on which it is printed, being an admirable specimen of the Porson style.
The Berber, or Mountaineer of the Atlas, by William S. Mayo, M.D., published by G.P. Putnam, is toned down to a very considerable degree from the high-colored pictures which produced such a dazzling effect in Kaloolah, the work by which the author first became known to the public. The scene is laid in Morocco, affording the writer an occasion for the use of a great deal of geographical and historical lore, which is introduced to decided advantage as a substantial back-ground to the story, which, in itself, possesses a sustained and powerful interest. Dr. Mayo displays a rare talent in individualizing character: his groups consist of distinct persons, without any confused blundering or repetition; he is not only a painter of manners, but an amateur of passion; and hence his admirable descriptions are combined with rapid and effective touches, which betray no ordinary insight into the subtle philosophy of the heart. The illusion of the story is sometimes impaired by the introduction of the novelist in the first person, a blemish which we should hardly have looked for in a writer who is so obviously well acquainted with the resources of artistic composition as the author of this volume.
Harper and Brothers have issued the Fifth Part of The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, which brings the biography down to the fifty-fifth year of his age, and to the close of the year 1828. The next number will complete the work, which has sustained a uniform interest from the commencement, presenting a charming picture of the domestic habits, literary enterprises, and characteristic moral features of its eminent subject. Mr. Southey's connection with the progress of English literature during the early part of the present century, his strong political predilections, the extent and variety of his productions, and his singular devotion to a purely intellectual life, make his biography one of the most entertaining and instructive records that have recently been published in this department of letters. His son, Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, by whom the work is edited, has acquitted himself of his task [pg 714] with admirable judgment and modesty, never obtruding himself on the notice of the reader, and leaving the correspondence, which, in fact, forms a continuous narrative, to make its natural impression, without weakening its force by superfluous comment. The present number contains several letters to our distinguished countryman, George Ticknor, Esq., of Boston, which will be read with peculiar interest on account of their free remarks on certain American celebrities, and their criticisms on some of the popular productions of American literature.
Among the late valuable theological publications, is The Works of Joseph Bellamy, D.D., with a Memoir of his Life and Character, by Tryon Edwards, issued by the Doctrinal Tract and Book Society, Boston, in two volumes. As models of forcible reasoning, and of ingenious and subtle analysis, the theological disquisitions of Dr. Bellamy have seldom been surpassed, and their reproduction in the present form will be grateful to many readers who have not been seduced by the excitements of the age from their love of profound and acute speculation. The memoir prefixed to these volumes gives an interesting view of the life of a New England clergyman of the olden time.
Adelaide Lindsay, from the prolific and vigorous pen of Mrs. Marsh, the author of “Two Old Men's Tales,” “The Wilmingtons,” &c, forms the one hundred and forty—seventh number of Harper and Brothers' “Library of Select Novels.”