The Companion. After-Dinner Table-Talk. By Chetwood Evelyn, Esq. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.
The idea of this volume is capital. It consists of short and spicy selections from eminent authors, and anecdotes of distinguished men, of a character very different from those which form the staple of jest-books. The principal source whence the editor has derived his brilliancies, is that most gentlemanly of wits and humorists, Sydney Smith; and a fine portrait of him very properly adorns the title page. The book would have been even better than it is, if the author had drawn his matter from a wider circle of reading.
Reginald Hastings; a Tale of the Troubles of 164-. By Elliott Warburton, Author of “The Crescent and the Cross,” etc. New York: Harper & Brothers.
This novel has been absurdly puffed in England, but it is nevertheless an interesting and well written one, worthy the pen which wrote “The Crescent and the Cross.” The period in which its events and characters are laid, the Great Rebellion, so called, has not recently been treated, but it has great capabilities for romantic and humorous characterization, which Warburton has employed, not indeed with the sagacity and genius of Scott, but with much skill and with dramatic effect.
Memoirs of the Life of Anne Boleyn, Queen of Henry VIII. By Miss Benger. From the Third London Edition. With a Memoir of the Author, by Miss Aiken. 1 vol. Philadelphia: A. Hart.
In some respects we prefer this memoir to that by Miss Strickland. The only fault we have to find with Miss Benger, indeed, is that she is too eulogistic. No one, in this age, doubts that Anne Boleyn was an innocent woman, who fell a victim partly to political intrigue, partly to her husband’s fickleness; but it is useless to deny that she had ambition, and ridiculous to claim for her the character of a saint. She was, in a word, a witty, graceful, well-read, fascinating female, vain of applause, a little free in her manners, a fast friend, and a bitter enemy. She never loved the king, as she might have loved Percy, had not Wolsey crossed her path, and converted her into a haughty, scheming, ambitious woman; but she never, on the other hand, violated her vows toward Henry, or failed in the discharge of any wifely duty. Her conduct during the two years that the divorce was in progress is the most censurable part of her life. We cannot forgive her for wringing the heart of the unoffending Catharine. Nor for her favor toward Henry at this time can we esteem her as we would have wished. But from the period that she became the lawful wife of the king her character visibly improves. She was affable to the low, courteous to the high, charitable to the needy, just to all. As her sorrows increase her character rises in loveliness; her frivolity is cast aside, the haughtiness departs, and the true nobleness of her heart shines forth. Nothing in history is more pathetic than the story of her arrest, trial, and execution. In a court where she had scarcely a friend, she bore herself with the fortitude of a martyr, asserting her innocence with an earnestness that carried conviction even to those who condemned her; and on the scaffold, though her over-wrought nerves occasionally found vent in hysterical gayety, her lofty and heroic soul triumphed over the terrible spectacle of the axe, the block, the gaping crowd. Her closing career, indeed, has all the grandeur of a tragedy. We read of it with eyes dim with tears, and with a heart execrating her murderers.
The volume is beautifully printed, and embellished with a portrait, copied from the celebrated picture of Holbein.