An interesting chapter in these volumes is devoted to the reprints of English books, in the course of which the author gives an account of the mammoth establishment of the Harpers. In the course of the year 1845 the publishers sold two millions of volumes. Their success with particular books seems to have filled Lyell with as much wonder as he is capable of feeling. They sold 80,000 copies of the Wandering Jew, and 40,000 copies of Bulwer’s Last of the Barons. Up to April, 1849, they had disposed of 40,000 copies of Macaulay’s History, at prices varying from four dollars to fifty cents, and they calculated that the publishers of other editions had sold 20,000, making in all 60,000 copies of one book in about three months. The circulation of the same work in Great Britain had been almost unprecedented, considering that the price was thirty-two shillings, and yet during the same period only 13,000 copies were disposed of. Since that period the English circulation has risen to 20,000, and we doubt not the American has nearly reached 80,000. Lyell seems to think, in alluding to these facts, that what the English author loses in money by an absence of copyright in America, he makes up in popularity and fame.
The Liberty of Rome: A History with an Historical Account of the Liberty of Ancient Nations. By Samuel Eliot. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 2 vols. 8vo.
This work, though composed of two solid octavos, each numbering five hundred pages, is still but the beginning of a series. The adventurous author intends to follow them up with a line of successors, devoting a brace of volumes to the Liberty of the Early Christian Ages, another to the Liberty of the Middle Ages, and still another to the Liberty of Europe since the Reformation. In addition to these, separate works are to be produced on the Liberty of England and that of America. Few, even among the giants of one idea, could contemplate such a vision of labor without despair, but Mr. Eliot has fully made up his mind to undertake the task; and there seems to be in him a power, possessed by few scholars, of unflinchingly looking in the face a prospect of dogged work, which will probably carry him through the business. The present volumes are able, full of learning, inspired by a genuine love of liberty and a genuine sense of religion, and are not deficient in historical sagacity. They reflect great credit on the author’s industry and ability, and, in many respects, are an addition to historical and to American literature. It would be foreign to our purpose to attempt an abstract of his labors, stretching as they do over a vast field of facts and principles, but it can be confidently asserted of his book, that it can hardly be read without increasing our knowledge, and inspiring an admiration of the author’s spirit, and a respect for his learning. If Mr. Eliot fails in securing the attention of a large class of readers, it will not be because he has nothing of importance to communicate, but because he does not exactly understand the best mode of communicating it. His style is generally languid, oppressed with words brought in to limit propositions, and the sentences are unconnected by that fusing spirit which gives directness and movement to narration and disquisition. These defects are perhaps the more observable, as the style is ambitious to the extent of suggesting an effort after correctness, and, with little freshness and energy, is replete with images seen through an unimaginative haze of words, and implying the absence rather than the possession of poetical power. The fault of the work, in short, is the fault of a person unpracticed in composition, and substituting a heavy rhetoric for a natural style; the merits are of a kind which the purest and raciest writers might be proud to claim.
The Penance of Roland, a Romance of the Peine Forte et Dure, and Other Poems. By Henry B. Hirst, Author of Endymion, etc. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16 mo.
This volume, though it contains nothing equal in classic beauty and grace to the exquisite poem of Endymion, has striking merits of another kind, indicating that the author’s genius is versatile, and can roam at will into many regions of song. The Penance of Roland is a long and spirited ballad story, giving free play to a variety of strong passions, and hurrying the reader swiftly along on a rushing stream of musical verse to the conclusion. The author has united narration and description in such an artistical manner, as to make his representations of scenery and moods of mind aid instead of obstructing the story; and he produces a strict unity of effect, by making every thing serve the dominant idea of the poem. In this power of grasping a leading idea, of conceiving a poem, Mr. Hirst is ever pre-eminently successful. This was the great charm of Endymion, and it is just as observable in the smaller pieces contained in the present volume as in that longer work. Of the whole nineteen there is not one which is merely a collection of melodious lines, embodying certain fancies and imaginations, but each is a short poem, imaginatively conceived and artistically executed. We have no space to refer to them individually, but it can be said of them generally, that they display a profound insight into the mysteries of melody both in metre and rhythm, and evince great strength and subtilty of imagination in the embodiment of varying moods of mind. The volume is a rich addition to the poetical literature of the country.
History of the National Constituent Assembly. By J. F. Corkran, Esq. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.
The author of this interesting volume was in daily attendance at the National Assembly for some months, and his book is a record of his personal observation of men and debates, including a view of the measures introduced into the Assembly, and the mode in which they were discussed. The author is an Englishman, and his eye is not always perfectly accurate in his perception of French character; but he is far beyond most of his countrymen even in this particular. He gives tolerably correct views of the different factions which divided the nation after the Revolution of February—the Red and the Moderate Republicans, Socialists, Communists, Bonapartists and Monarchists; and some capital portraits are drawn of Lamartine, Louis Blanc, Cremieux, Garnier Pages, Arago, Marie, Murrast, Thieré, Barrot, Berryer, Dupin, Rollin, Cavaignac, Mole, and Marshal Bugeaud. One of the most interesting portions of the volume we have found to be the account of Pierre Leroux. Mr. Corkran is evidently ignorant of the fact that Leroux is one of the profoundest metaphysicians of France, that he not only demolished the Eclectic system of Cousin, but is himself a man with positive philosophical ideas, and accordingly he considers him simply as a political socialist, who fails as a public speaker. Leroux is thus described: “Beneath a prodigious mass, or mop, of black hair, as wild and entangled as the brushwood of a virgin forest, slumber a pair of misty, dreamy eyes, while the spectator’s ears are regaled with the sounds of a sing-song voice, going through an interminable history of human society, from the earliest days to the present time, for the purpose of showing that the world has hitherto been on a wrong social track, and struggling in the toils of a great mistake.” It seems that Leroux was in the habit of reading his speeches, and though he at first obtained the ear of the Assembly, he was ruined by having it proved upon him that he was in the custom of reading one of his own unsaleable printed pamphlets instead of a speech written for the occasion. Mr. Corkran says, “when he attempted to read afterward, a resolution was gravely proposed that no books should be read at the tribune. Well do I recollect the scowl with which the philosopher slowly ascended the tribune.”