Daniel Webster and his Contemporaries. By Charles W. March. New York: Charles Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.
This is the fourth edition of a work originally published under the title of “Reminiscences of Congress.” It is mostly devoted to Mr. Webster, and gives an animated account of his life, with long descriptions of the great debates in which he has been engaged. Benton, John Quincy Adams, Grundy, Livingston, and many other statesmen, are also more or less powerfully and truthfully sketched. Mr. March’s style is unequal, but has many brilliant and vigorous, and some splendid passages. The book is calculated to be extensively popular.
Marco Paul’s Adventures in the Pursuit of Knowledge. By Jacob Abbot. New York: Harper & Brothers. 4 vols. 18mo.
These little volumes are in Abbot’s most attractive style, giving an account of the journeys of a boy in Maine, New York and Vermont, in search of knowledge. The volume on the Erie Canal and that on the Forests in Maine, are especially interesting. Each volume is well printed and illustrated.
Lydia; a Woman’s Book. By Mrs. Newton Crossland. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo.
This is a well-written and elegantly printed novel, designed to exhibit the fatal injury done to a woman’s nature when her affections are lavished on an object unworthy of her love. The description of Lydia’s resistance to all the facts which would demonstrate to another the wickedness of Charlton, and her continued love for him to the very point where she discovers him playing the part of a poisoner, is exceedingly well done, and evinces a more than ordinary familiarity with the weakening effect of affection on character, where affection is not accompanied by sense and principle. The different parts of the story are not very artistically combined, and the characters are not very powerfully conceived, but the volume will still well reward perusal for the excellence of its sentiments and design, and its exposure of the rascality and meanness of that class of fine and “fast” young men who are commonly most successful in winning the love of beautiful, accomplished and virtuous young women.