Domestic History of the Revolution, by Mrs. Ellet (Baker and Scribner), follows the thread of the Revolutionary drama, unfolding many agreeable and often touching incidents, which have not been brought to light before, and illustrating the manners and society of that day, in connection with the great struggle for national life. The researches of the author in collecting materials for “The Women of the Revolution,” have put her in possession of a variety of domestic details and anecdotes, illustrative of the state of the country at different intervals, which she has used with excellent effect in the composition of this volume. Without indulging in fanciful embellishment, she has confined herself to the simple facts of history, rejecting all traditional matter, which is not sustained by undoubted authority. The events of the war in the upper districts of South Carolina, are described at length, as, in the opinion of Mrs. Ellet, no history has ever yet done justice to that portion of the country, nor to the chivalrous actors who there signalized themselves in the Revolutionary contest.
D. Appleton and Company have published an interesting volume of American biography, entitled Lives of Eminent Literary and Scientific Men, by James Wynne, M.D., comprising memoirs of Franklin, President Edwards, Fulton, Chief Justice Marshall, Rittenhouse, and Eli Whitney. They are composed in a tone of great discrimination and reserve, and scarcely in a single estimate come up to the popular estimation of the character described. Doctor Franklin and President Edwards, especially, are handled in a manner adapted to chill all enthusiasm which may have been connected with their names. Nor does the scientific fame of Robert Fulton gather any new brightness under the author's hands. This cool dissection of the dead may not be in accordance with the public taste, but in justice to the author, it should be borne in mind that he is a surgeon by profession.
The same house has issued an edition of Cicero's Select Orations, with Notes, by Professor E.A. Johnson, in which liberal use has been made of the most recent views of eminent German philologists. The volume is highly creditable to the industry and critical acumen of the Editor, and will prove a valuable aid to the student of the classics.
Lady Willoughby's Diary is reprinted by A.S. Barnes and Co., New York—the first American edition of a volume unrivaled for its sweetness and genuine pathos.
The Young Woman's Book of Health, by Dr. William A. Alcott, published by Tappan, [pg 716] Whittemore, and Co., Boston, is an original summary of excellent physiological precepts, expressed with the simplicity and distinctness for which the author is celebrated.
Songs of Labor and Other Poems is the title of a new volume by John G. Whittier, published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, containing the spirited lyrics which have already gained a large share of favor in the public journals.
Poems of the Heart, by George W. Nicholson, (G. S. Appleton, Philadelphia), is the “last production of the author's boyhood,” and exhibits the most decided marks of its origin.
The Mariner's Vision is the title of a Poem by T.L. Donnelly, Philadelphia, evidently written with little preparation, but showing some traces of poetic talent, which may ripen into excellence at a future day.
A beautiful reprint of Æsop's Fables, edited by Rev. Thomas Garnes, with more than Fifty Illustrations from Tennial's designs has been issued by Robert B. Collins, New York, in a style of superb typography, which can not fail to command the admiration of the amateur.
The volume before us awakens recollections of “by-gone days,” in the Publishers of this Magazine, upon which we love to dwell. Æsop's Fables was among the first books which passed through our press. Some thirty years since, we printed an edition of it for the late Evert Duyckinck, Esq. (father of the present accomplished editors of the Literary World), one of the leading booksellers and publishers of his day, and, in every sense, “a good man and true,” as well as one of our earliest and best friends. His memory to us is precious—his early kindness will ever live in our recollection.