Mr. Mathews is well known as an able but somewhat eccentric writer, with the grotesqueness, as well as the insight of the humorist, and often miscalculating the avenues to popular favor, while he gave no evidence of lacking the powers which deserve it. His present novel is his best production in respect to story and characterization, and is especially remarkable for its minute knowledge of every locality, and every phase of humanity and life, in the city of New York. This is not displayed in the way of a mere copyist, but in the higher mode of the observing humorist, to whom external forms are symbolical of serious or smiling spiritual facts. The style sparkles with a kind of laughing earnestness, which indicates an intense sympathy in the author with the varying throng of local objects which press upon his imagination for representation. We commend it to all readers who have fancies to be touched by its quaint analogies, and risibilities to be tingled by its humor.
Heroines of the Missionary Enterprise; or Sketches of Prominent Female Missionaries. By Daniel C. Eddy. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo.
This elegant volume contains thirteen carefully prepared biographies of eminent women who have toiled and suffered, bodily and mentally, in the missionary cause. They are well worthy the honors of heroism, and some of them in Catholic countries, would have been sainted. Among the biographies are the names of Harriet Newell, Esther Butler, Sarah L. Smith, Henrietta Shuck, Sarah D. Comstock, and the three Mrs. Judsons.
The Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors, in Health and Disease. By William B. Carpenter. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard.
This work is the Essay, to the author of which was awarded one hundred guineas, in London, by the Committee, selected to read the articles on behalf of the munificent donor. It is a work of great ability, thoroughly exposing all the fallacies which men indulge in, as an excuse for using intoxicating drinks, and driving the last vestige of excuse from the drunkard. It is a work that should be read by every young man in America.
Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire: compromising a Voyage to California, via Panama; Life in San Francisco and Monterey; Pictures of the Gold Region, and Experiences of Mexican Travel. By Bayard Taylor, author of “Views a-Foot,” etc. With illustrations by the author. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 2 vols. 12mo.
The popularity of the author of these delightful volumes is indicated by the rapid sale of the first edition, which was disposed of on the day of publication. The work will add to Taylor’s reputation in respect to every quality of mind and disposition for which he is deservedly distinguished. It so combines the observer with the poet, that the reader soon becomes the author’s companion, seeing what he sees and feeling what he feels. His descriptions of scenery are beautiful representations; a few quiet and magical sentences bring pictures right before the eye; and when his subject happens to be the vegetation of the tropics, he gives us not only foliage but fragrance. The whole book is pervaded by that genial and happy spirit, which lends fascination to all of Taylor’s writings, and converts his readers into friendly partisans. We have not space at present to indicate the stores of information and delight which the volumes contain, but will extract one paragraph on a Pacific sunset, as a specimen of the ease with which the author’s facile style rises to eloquence. “Why,” he exclaims, “has never a word been said or sung about sunset on the Pacific? No where on this earth can one be overvaulted with such a glory of colors. The sky, with a ground-hue of rose toward the west, and purple toward the east, is mottled and flecked over all its surface with light clouds, running through every shade of crimson, amber, violet, and russet-gold. There is no dead duskiness opposite the sunken sun; the whole vast shell of firmament glows with an equal radiance, reduplicating its hues on the glassy sea, so that we seem floating in a hollow sphere of prismatic crystal. The cloud-strata, at different heights in the air, take different coloring; through bars of burning carmine one may look on the soft, rose-purple folds of an inner curtain, and, far within and beyond that, on the clear amber-green of the immaculate sky. As the light diminishes, these radiant vapors sink and gather into flaming pyramids, between whose pinnacles the serene depth of air is of that fathomless violet-green which we see in the skies of Titian.”