In Italy the most prominent subject of interest is literally one of smoke. The various Governments derive a large revenue from the duties upon tobacco. The malcontents make a demonstration of their hatred to the Governments by abstaining from the use of the weed, and endeavoring to induce others, sometimes by no gentle means, to do the same. At Bologna the Austrian commandant was obliged to issue an ordinance threatening punishment upon those who offered violence to peaceable citizens by hindering them from using tobacco either for smoking or as snuff. At Rome the state of things is much the same. Continual encounters take place between the French soldiers and the Romans. The French commander has suppressed all permission to carry arms in consequence. Fire-arms, swords, and poinards, were ordered to be surrendered by a certain day, after which domiciliary visits would be made, and all persons found having weapons in their possession, were to be tried by court-martial. Persons carrying sword-canes to be arrested and fined.
Literary Notices.
Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Vol. I., by his nephew, Christopher Wordsworth, edited by Henry Reed, and published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, will disappoint those who have anticipated an abundance of interesting personal details in the biography of its illustrious subject. It is the history of his mind, not of his external life. The incidents of his peculiar career were the successive births of his poems. No man ever led a more self-contained, interior, subjective life than Wordsworth, and hence the development of thought takes the place in his biography which is usually occupied by the flow of events. Every object was valued by him in proportion as it furnished the materials of poetry. The aspects of the glorious mountain region in which he had established his household gods, the intercourse of society in which, during the later portion of his life, he took a conspicuous part, on account of the influx of visitors that besieged his retired, contemplative haunts, the manifestations of the contemporary literature of the day in its wonderful, pregnant phases, and the strong current of political excitements throughout a most eventful period of English history, never disturbed the deep, placid stream of the poet's existence, or seduced him from the exclusive communion with the realms of fancy and reflection, to which he was wedded by ties of indissoluble fealty. His biographer has been true to this cardinal fact, which characterizes the identity of Wordsworth. He has aimed only to explain the genesis of his poems, in a manner to make them the historians of their author. The critical disquisitions which thus arise often possess great interest, and furnish suggestive lessons which few living poets can study without profit. Numerous extracts from the correspondence of Wordsworth are given in this volume, which are marked by his usual gravity and intenseness of reflection, but are destitute of the spontaneous ease which forms the chief beauty of epistolary writing. On the whole, we regard this biography as eminently instructive, presenting many noticeable facts in psychology and literary history, and well rewarding an attentive study, but of so uniformly a didactic cast as to grow tedious in perusal, and likely to find few readers beyond the circle of Wordsworth's enthusiastic admirers.
The Religion of Geology and its Connected Sciences, by Edward Hitchcock, President of Amherst College (published by Phillips, Sampson, and Co.), presents in a compact, popular form, the latest established results of geological investigation, in connection with their bearings on revealed religion. In the opinion of President Hitchcock, a large proportion of the works which have been written within the last thirty years on this subject, excepting those of J. Pye Smith, Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Harris, Dr. Buckland, Professor Sedgewick, Professor Whewell, Dr. King, Dr. Anderson, Hugh Miller, and similar writers, have shown a deficiency of the knowledge essential to a mastery of the question. A number of authors, though familiar with the Bible, had no accurate knowledge of geology, and by resorting to the denunciation of their opponents, have excited a gross and unfounded prejudice against the cultivators of that science, and at the same time have awakened a disgust among intelligent students, who have inferred the weakness of their cause from the folly of its defense. The subject is discussed in the present volume with a large, philosophical comprehension, and with distinguished ability. Faithful to the substantial deductions of science, it strenuously defends the received principles of religion and presents, from its elevated point of view, a variety of conclusions of no less importance to natural theology, than to a lucid conception of the structure of the material universe.
The Glens (published by Charles Scribner) is a new novel, by J.L. M'Connel, the author of "Grahame," and "Talbot and Vernon," who now comes before the public for the first time under his own name. The plot and execution of "The Glens" sufficiently resemble his former productions to betray the identity of their origin. With greater compression of style, and a more natural development of incident, it exhibits the same passion for dealing with legal evidence, and the same acute and comprehensive analysis of character, which distinguish the other writings of the author. He certainly possesses a rare power of clothing the darker emotions of the soul with a life-like naturalness, and depicting the excesses of stern and sullen passion in colors that are no less abhorrent than truthful. The plot of this novel is one of terrible intensity, though it can not be charged with extravagance. The prevailing gloom of the story is happily relieved by the descriptions of Western manners and scenery, which are lively and picturesque, and at the same time, as we have reason to believe, remarkable for their exact fidelity. We think the success of this work must decide the vocation of the author. He has already gained a reputation in American literature of which he may justly be proud. We shall look with interest for the future creations of his genius, which with the increasing polish of their execution, we are confident, will not lose their natural fragrant freshness, nor their bold masculine vitality.
The History of Cleopatra, by Jacob Abbott, a new volume of his Historical Series, publishing by Harper and Brothers, presents a subject of considerable delicacy for the pen of its grave and highly ethical author. He seems to be aware of the difficulty at the outset. "The story of Cleopatra," he observes, "is a story of crime. It is a narrative of the course and the consequences of unlawful love. In her strange and romantic history we see this passion portrayed with the most complete and graphic fidelity, in all its influences and effects, its uncontrollable impulses, its intoxicating joys, its reckless and mad career, and the dreadful remorse, and ultimate despair and ruin in which it always and inevitably ends." But Mr. Abbott has disposed of the uncongenial theme with his accustomed ingenuity and good sense. Without vailing the character of the voluptuous queen, or concealing the poetical aspects of her romantic history, he delineates the events in her life, for which she is now chiefly remembered, with a naïve simplicity that becomes piquant from its apparent artlessness. Nor does he indulge, to any disagreeable excess, in the superfluous moralizing which a less shrewd writer would have deemed essential to the effect. He leaves the story to assert its own moral. The reader, who chooses, may find it for himself.
C.S. Francis and Co. have republished a new volume of Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, containing "Prometheus Bound," "A Lament for Adonis," "Casa Guidi Windows," and a variety of miscellaneous pieces. They bear the authentic impress of Mrs. Browning's peculiar genius, abounding in bursts of noble inspiration, combined with the workings of earnest reflection, and expressed in a style which is no less remarkable for the richness of its classic adornings, than for its wild, erratic strength, and its frequent displays of an almost puerile simplicity. The typographical appearance of this volume is very neat.
The Third and last Volume of Humboldt's Cosmos, in Otté's translation, is issued by Harper and Brothers, embracing a general view of the discoveries of astronomical science, considered in two divisions, namely, the region of the fixed stars, and our solar and planetary system. This portion of Humboldt's great work is characterized by the sublime brevity, the profound comprehensiveness, the affluence of physical facts, and the reverent modesty of speculation which distinguish the philosophical writings of the author, and which are in such admirable harmony with the impressive dignity of the theme. In the Introduction to the present volume, Humboldt gives an historical review of the attempts to reduce the phenomena of the universe to a grand central unity, including the labors of Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Descartes, and Sir Isaac Newton. The problem, as he conclusively shows, still remains to be solved. The present imperfect state of physical science offers insuperable obstacles to a speedy solution. New substances and new forces are constantly brought to light, nor can we escape from the conviction that no observation or analysis has yet exhausted the number of impelling, producing, and formative agencies. "The great and solemn spirit," Humboldt remarks, "which pervades the intellectual labor in question arises from the sublime consciousness of striving toward the infinite, and of grasping all that is revealed to us amid the boundless and inexhaustible fullness of creation, development, and being." The fidelity to this sentiment which is every where apparent in "Cosmos," is no less remarkable than the compactness of its reasoning and the wealth of its details, and to the mind imbued with the genuine spirit of science, invests this extraordinary work with a perpetual charm.