This powerful story has a peculiar interest from its bearing on the fashionable ethics of certain novelists, who inculcate libertinism under the guise of liberality of thought and nobility of sentiment. The authoress shows the depraving influence of this philosophy on the noblest natures. Her insight into the workings of passion is remarkably bright and clear; and the vigorous movement of her narrative fastens the reader’s interest to the end. The chief fault of the book is its unrelieved intensity.
Tales and Traditions of Hungary. By Theresa Pulszky. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.
To those who are interested in the recent struggles of the brave and unfortunate Hungarian people for national independence, this volume will be heartily welcome. It gives us glimpses into the manners of the people, and exhibits the strong foundations on which the national character rests. The work has been popular in England, and its authoress, now a resident in the United States, has republished it with additions. We hope it will meet with a large share of popular favor.
LITERARY GOSSIP.
“The Household of Sir Thomas More.”
“The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell.”[[27]]
Two of the most exquisitely finished and delightful works that have come before our eyes in years, have lately been reproduced from the English press by two of our New York publishers, without any hint in regard to authorship, or indeed to the aim and nature of the books, whether fact or fiction. Their names stand above, and the personages to whom they have relation will be recognized as the great and good chancellor of Henry VIII., barbarously and illegally put to death for his refusal to take the oath of supremacy, and for his opposition to the unjust divorce of Katharine and marriage of the king with Anne Boleyn; and as the unhappy wife of that greatest of poets, but sternest and most impracticable of husbands, John Milton. No hint, as I have observed, is given as to authorship, but it is I think impossible that we shall be mistaken in ascribing both to the same pen; for, although the wielder of that pen has chosen to maintain an absolute incognito, his mark—though I am not altogether clear that for his we might not better read her—is not to be confounded with that of any other; nor do we recognize any other in England or America at all comparable to this.
In both works we find the same delicate and delicious freshness, like the perfume from a rich clover-field after a summer shower; the same truthfulness to nature; the same intimate acquaintance with the spirit of the times, the character and circumstances of the supposed writers; the same natural and artless pathos; the same simplicity, and, if I may so speak of writing evidently fictitious, the same authenticity and genuineness of style.