The Builder's Companion, and The Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer's Companion, are two recent volumes of the Practical Series, published by H.C. Baird, Philadelphia, reprinted from English works of standard excellence. They present a mass of valuable scientific information, with succinct descriptions of various mechanical processes, and are well suited to promote an intelligent interest in industrial pursuits.
Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions (Baker and Scribner), is a Prize Essay by Dr. Worthington Hooker, whose former work on a similar subject has given him considerable reputation as a writer in the department of medical literature. He is a devoted adherent to the old system of practice, and spares no pains to expose what he deems the quackeries of modern times. His volume is less positive than critical, and contains but a small amount of practical instruction. There are many of his suggestions, however, which can not be perused without exciting profound reflection.
Ruschenberger's Lexicon of Terms used in Natural History, a valuable manual for the common use of the student, is published by Lippincott, Grambo, and Co., Philadelphia.
Another volume of Lamartine's Confidences, translated from the French, under the title of Additional Memoirs of My Youth, is published by Harper and Brothers, and can not fail to excite the same interest which has been called forth by the previous autobiographical disclosures of the author. It is written in the rich, glowing, poetical style in which Lamartine delights to clothe his early recollections, and with a naïve frankness of communication equal to that of Rousseau, is pervaded with a tone of tender, elevated, and religious sentiment. The description of a troop of family friends gives a lively tableau of the old school of French gentlemen, and furnishes the occasion for the picturesque delineation of manners, in which Lamartine commands such an admirable pen. The Confessions would not be complete without one or two love episodes, which are accordingly presented in a sufficiently romantic environment.
Harper and Brothers have published a cheap edition of Genevieve, translated from the French of Lamartine, by A.R. Scoble. This novel, intended to illustrate the condition of humble life in France, and to furnish popular, moral reading for the masses, is written with more simplicity than we usually find in the productions of Lamartine, and contains many scenes of deep, pathetic interest. The incidents are not without a considerable tincture of French exaggeration, and are hardly suited, one would suppose, to exert a strong or salutary influence in the sphere of common, prosaic, unromantic duties. As a specimen of the kind of reading which Lamartine deems adapted to the moral improvement of his countrymen, Genevieve is a literary curiosity.
Little and Brown, Boston, have published a handsome edition of Prof. Rose's Chemical Tables for the Calculation of Quantitative Analyses, recalculated and improved, by the American Editor, W.P. Dexter.
Harper and Brothers have issued The History of Pendennis, No. 7, which, to say the least, is of equal interest with any of the preceding numbers, showing the same felicitous skill in portraying the every-day aspects of our common life, which has given Thackeray such a brilliant eminence as a painter of manners. The unconscious case with which he hits off a trait of weakness or eccentricity, his truthfulness to nature, his rare common sense, and his subdued, but most effective satire, make him one of the most readable English writers now before the public.
Stockhardt's Principles of Chemistry, translated from the German, by C.H. Peirce, is published by John Bartlett, Cambridge. This work is accompanied with a high recommendation from Prof. Horsford of Harvard University, which, with its excellent reputation as a textbook in Germany, will cause it to be sought for with eagerness by students of chemistry in our own country.
Petticoat Government, by Mrs. Trollope, is the one hundred and forty-eighth number of Harper's Library of Select Novels, and in spite of the ill odor attached to the name of the authoress, will be found to exhibit a very considerable degree of talent, great insight into the more vulgar elements of English society, a vein of bitter and caustic satire, and a truly feminine minuteness in the delineation of character. The story is interspersed with dashes of broad humor, and with its piquant, rapid, and not overscrupulous style, will reward the enterprise of perusal.
George P. Putnam has published A Series of Etchings, by J.W. Ehninger, illustrative of Hood's "Bridge of Sighs." The plates, which are eight in number, are executed with a good deal of spirit and taste, representing the principal scenes suggested to the imagination by Hood's exquisitely pathetic poem.