The Stars and the Earth; or Thoughts upon Space, Time, and Eternity. Boston: Crosby & Nichols.
This is a small volume of eighty-seven pages crammed with thought. It appears to have excited much attention abroad, and to have passed rapidly through three editions. The speculations of the author are grand and original, having a solid basis on undoubted facts, and conducting the mind to results of “great pith and moment.” We have no space to make an abstract of what is in itself an epitome, but advise all our readers, who have thought on the subject of space and time, to obtain the work. Its style is a transparent medium for the thought, and its meaning stupidity itself can hardly miss. It requires neither a knowledge of mental or physical science to be comprehended, though it is an addition to both; and it removes some difficulties which have troubled all reflecting minds.
Retribution; or the Vale of Shadows. A Tale of Passion. By Emma D. E. Nevitt Southworth. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Judged by its own pretensions as a tale of passion, this work has considerable merit, and is worthy of a more permanent form than the pamphlet in which it is published. The mode which the Harpers have adopted of issuing all novels in this uncouth shape, in order to reduce their price to twenty-five cents, is an unfortunate one for the success of a new novelist like the accomplished authoress of the present story. No man of taste, who has regard for his eyesight, is likely to read pamphlet novels, unless the author be celebrated; and the circulation of a book like the present, is therefore likely to be confined to persons who are not in the habit of discriminating very closely between one novelist and another, provided both be readable, and consume a certain portion of leisure time. Whenever an American author produces a work of fiction as meritorious in respect to literary execution as “Retribution,” it ought to be issued in a form which will enable it to take its appropriate place in American literature.
History of the United States of America. By Richard Hildreth. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vol. 2. 8vo.
This volume ends at about the commencement of the Revolution. It is written in the same style, and on similar principles, as the first volume, which we noticed a short time ago. The work is, at least, worthy the praise of condensation, there being included in the present volume, a narrative of the events occurring in all “the Colonies during the period of a hundred years.”
Letters from the Allegheny Mountains. By Charles Lanman. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.