The work before us is a judicious selection made by the author himself, from his most popular tales. His numerous admirers will rejoice in an opportunity to possess themselves of so considerable a number of his best performances, not in the fugitive shape of articles for the journals, but in an elegant volume of over four hundred octavo pages, richly illustrated with engravings, and handsomely got up in every respect. We predict for this volume a very extensive sale, and particularly recommend it as a highly appropriate gift-book in the present holyday season. As it is a subscription book, it will be sold only by agents. Mr. J. W. Bradley, 48 North Fourth street, Philadelphia, is the publisher, and persons at a distance can order it from him.
History of the French Revolution of 1848. By A. De Lamartine. Translated by Francis A. Darivage and William S. Chase. Boston: Phillips; Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.
This is an admirable translation of a work requiring something more than a knowledge of French to be well translated. The spirit is rendered as well as the letter. The book itself, will outlive all of Lamartine’s other productions, from its connection with a great historical event, even if it were not invaluable as a psychological curiosity. No reader who penetrates into its animating spirit, curious to discover in Lamartine’s individual character the source of its miraculous self-content can resist the impression that the author considers himself so much a god, that he would not be in the least surprised if a band of fanatics should erect a temple for his worship. No man, whose nature was not in his own estimation raised above human nature, could possibly have the face to present such a work as the present to the public eye. It is a sentimental apotheosis of the writer. The reader finds the narrative of the events of the revolution altogether inferior in interest to the exhibition of Lamartine, and he is lost in wonder as he thinks what must be the character of a nation in which such a man could be lifted into power. The author, beyond any man we have ever known through history, fiction, or actual life, can fasten his gaze on himself as mirrored in his self-esteem, and exclaim, “thou art beautiful and good.” Old John Bunyan, in descending one day from the pulpit, where he had preached with tremendous power, was accosted by an old lady with the compliment, “Oh! what a refreshing sermon!” “Yes,” replied Bunyan, “the Devil whispered in my ear to that effect as I came down.” Now this devil is at Lamartine’s ear all the time, but Lamartine mistakes him for an angel.
The Puritan and his Daughter. By J. K. Paulding. New York; Baker & Scribner. 2 vols. 12mo.
We are glad to welcome Mr. Paulding back again to the land of romance, even though he enters it with a somewhat jaunty air, and a somewhat scornful toss of his head. There is a bitter, if we may not call it saucy, brilliancy about our author, which we think is rather a recommendation than otherwise, and in the present volumes he has exhibited it to his heart’s and gall’s content. The work is dedicated, in a humorously reckless and critic-defying preface, to the “most high and mighty sovereign of sovereigns, King People,” and scattered through the novel are abundant pleasant impertinences, sufficiently marked by individual whim and crotchet, to stimulate the reader to go on reading, even should the interest of the story flag. We have only had time to dip into the work, here and there, but have read enough to know that it “means mischief,” and that it has more than Mr. Paulding’s common raciness and plain speaking.
The approach of the holydays is, as usual, marked by the advent of new publications.
Among the most beautiful that have been laid upon our table are The Life of Christ, by the Rev. H. Hastings Weld, and a new edition of Dr. Johnson’s admirable Rasselas. These works are published by Messrs. Hogan & Thompson, in the most finished and approved manner, conforming in style to Paul and Virginia, and the Vicar of Wakefield, issued by the same gentlemen last year. We cannot speak too highly of the typographical execution of the volumes before us, or the magnificent binding in which they are enclosed. Both are superb, and reflect credit alike on the publishers, and the artists who have invested with new charms, two volumes which deservedly merit a place in every library.