We cannot resist availing ourselves of this occasion to refer to Mr. Putnam’s judgment and generosity in his selection and publication of American books. He comes as near the ideal of a model publisher as any living bookseller, combining, as he does, a real enthusiasm for literature, and a patriotic feeling in regard to American letters. Though he has been in business on his own account but about two years, his list already shows a goodly number of valuable publications, among which are many of the best works ever produced by native authors, and his taste in respect to all that constitutes the mechanical elegance of books has a certainty not common in his profession.
The Living Authors of England. By Thomas Powell. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.
There is much in this volume to please and to offend every discriminating reader. The author is a man of fine talent, whose versions of Chaucer, not to speak of his original poems, are sufficient to indicate his ability for genial and graceful composition. But the present volume bears marks of haste and carelessness both as regards style and opinions, presents a medley of original and striking with flippant and unjust remarks, and in some instances passes the bounds of propriety. Mr. Powell knows personally many of the authors he delineates, and a few of the sketches indicate a disposition to avenge personal affronts. The notices of Talfourd, Moxon and Dickens, appear to us to have flowed from the author’s spleen more than from his heart or brain. The insults to Washington Irving are gross and unpardonable, having no reason in any evidence presented or withheld. We have read Foster’s Life of Goldsmith as well as Irving’s, and the books are so dissimilar that it is ridiculous to bring a charge of plagiarism against the latter because both employed the same materials. If Irving is to be sacrificed, we trust it will not be to John Foster—a man who, whatever may be his talents and accomplishments, has not a tittle of Irving’s beautiful genius.
Poems by Amelia (Mrs. Welby of Kentucky.) A New and Enlarged Edition. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo.
This splendid volume is illustrated with seven highly finished engravings, after designs by Weir, and in point of mechanical execution is very nearly equal to the same publishers’ exquisite edition of Halleck. “Amelia’s” poems have passed within a comparatively short period through seven editions, and they have therefore fairly earned their right to a handsome volume like the present. It is hardly possible to glance upon a page of Mrs. Welby’s book without having an affection for the authoress, and without sympathizing in her success. Envy and spite cannot touch her. The fine feminine tenderness, the graceful and affluent fancy, the mellowness and melody of diction, and the innocence and purity of sentiment, which are so characteristic of almost every poem in the volume, overcome the resistance equally of reader and critic. It may be generally said of her poetry that her nature is finer than her intellect. There is too much impassioned expansiveness in her pieces to produce those striking effects which come from stern, brief, tingling expression, in which imagination appears as a condensing as well as shaping power.
Redburn: His first Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service. By Herman Melville, Author of Types, &c. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.
Mr. Melville has been called the “De Foe of the Ocean,” and we can hardly conceive of a compliment more flattering, and, on the whole, more appropriate. He has De Foe’s power of realizing the details of a scene to his own imagination, and of impressing them on the imaginations of others, but he has also a bit of deviltry in him which we do not observe in De Foe, however much raciness it may lend to Melville. The present work, though it hardly has the intellectual merit of “Mardi,” is less adventurous in style, and more interesting. It can be read through at one sitting, with continued delight, and we see no reason why it should not be one of the most popular of all the books relating to the romance of the sea. The fact that it narrates the adventures of a “green hand,” will make it invaluable to a large class of youthful sailors. The style sparkles with wit and fancy, but its great merit is a rapidity of movement, which bears the reader along, almost by main force from the commencement to the conclusion of the volume.