“We wear away the day in this delightful traffic. It has been a rhetorical tilt. We have talked, and lived, and bought poetry, and at twilight our treasures follow us to the hotel.”
Paris Sketch Book. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 18mo.
In these volumes the author of Vanity Fair appears as the social critic of Paris. With an eye that nothing ridiculous or bizarre can elude, he peers into the shady corners of French life, and transfers its oddities to his page. His English sense, it is true, is somewhat too constantly accompanied by his English prejudice; but even where he loses his fairness he never loses his brilliancy.
Among the many attractions of the book are some capital stories illustrative of French manners and character. Perhaps the best chapter is that on Louis the Fourteenth. Its exposition of kingship is mercilessly satirical and remorselessly just. There is a little wood-cut in this part of the book, which the revolutionists should distribute in every country in Europe as an instrument of insurrection. It represents first the royal robes, then royalty without the robes, then royalty in the robes. The inference to the eye is irresistible, that the robes and not the men constitute royalty. The satire is especially directed at Louis XIV., but it might with more justice be fastened on the present sovereigns of the continent of Europe.
The Study of Words. By Richard Cheverix French, B. D. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 12mo.
This volume has been very popular in England, having passed rapidly through four editions. The author not only considers words as “fossil poetry,” but fossil ethics and fossil history. Many of his speculations are ingenious, tending to impress upon the mind the truth that language is the incarnation of thought, and that words are things. But in all that relates to the philosophy of the matter he is very inferior to one of our writers, the Rev. Dr. Bushnell, of Hartford, who, in his late theological writings has exhibited extraordinary depth and sentences of thought in demonstrating both the vitality and the limitations of language. Mr. French’s work is sketchy and readable, distinguished rather for the value of its detached remarks than for the comprehensiveness of its general plan. Its tendency, however, is to provoke independent thinking on the subject, in which Mr. French’s “Story of Words” may be disconnected from the languid wordiness of Mr. French.
The Works of Stephen Olin, D. D., LL. D., late President of the Wesleyan University. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vols. 1 and 2. 12mo.