One of the best of Miss Sedgwick’s smaller works. It is written in a light, rambling style, enforcing truths by anecdotes or short stories. It has been deservedly popular, and we predict that it will pass to a third and even fourth and fifth edition.
What’s to be Done? or, the Will and the Way. By the author of “Wealth and Worth,” &c. One vol. 12mo. Pp. 232. New York: Harper & Brothers.
The pleasant little volume entitled “Wealth and Worth,” which we commended to our readers a month or two since, has been succeeded by another work from the same pen, which we think even superior to its predecessor. It is a story of American life, conveying, as its piquant title indicates, a useful and impressive moral. The style is animated and pure, and the sketches of character are graphic, forcible, and various; while the plot preserves a deep and natural interest. “Wealth and Worth” has gone through five large editions in the course of as many months—a remarkable instance of rapidly attained popularity. A success equally decided must attend the spirited little tale of “What’s to be Done?”
The Divine Rule of Faith and Practice, or a Defence of the Catholic Doctrine, that Holy Scripture has been since the Times of the Apostles the Sole Divine Rule of Faith and Practice to the Church, against the dangerous Errors of the Authors of the Tracts for the Times and the Romanists, as, particularly, that the Rule of Faith is “made up of Scripture and Tradition together,” &c: In which also the Doctrines of the Apostolical Succession, the Eucharistic Sacrifice, &c., are fully discussed. By William Goode, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two vols. 8vo. Philadelphia: Herman Hooker.
This is probably the most learned and able theological work that has been published in England or America during the year. Those who have read the “Tracts for the Times,” and all who feel any interest in the religious controversies of the age, will thank us for directing to it their attention.
Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay: Edited by her Niece. Parts I. and II. Philadelphia, Carey & Hart.
Miss Burney, afterward Madame D’Arblay, is best known to the literary world as the authoress of “Evelina,” one of the most admirable and popular novels in the English language. She died early in the year 1841, at the advanced age of ninety, and two volumes of her autobiographical remains have since been published in London, both of which are included in these “parts” of the American edition. She was intimately acquainted with Johnson, Sheridan, Burke, Boswell, and other eminent persons of their time; and her diary, including a great number of interesting anecdotes and reminiscences of her early career, is one of the most entertaining works of the day.