The Shoulder-Knot, by the Rev. B. F. Tefft, published by Harper and Brothers, is a work of more than common originality, intended to convey important views of life, through the medium of fiction, and containing many passages of remarkable vigor and beauty. The story is derived from facts in the history of Louis XIII. of France, who, with his Queen, the admirable Anne of Austria, the Queen Mother, the selfish and passionate Mary, and the consummate master of intrigue, Cardinal Richelieu, is made to act a leading part in the development of the narrative. The author displays less skill in the artistic blending together of the principal incidents of the plot, than in his isolated descriptions and conversations, many of which indicate a high order of talent. The whole story is pervaded with a wholesome and elevated religious tone, showing the power of fictitious creation to illustrate the most vitally important truths.
Stringer and Townsend have published a Supplement to Frank Forrester's Fish and Fishing in the United States, by W. H. Herbert, correcting some errors which had crept into the principal work on that subject, and completing the memoirs of the finny tribes under the democratic institutions of America, with the jaunty airiness of description, and genuine relish of natural scenery (as well as of fried fish), which have given such a wide celebrity to the flowing and unctuous pen of Frank Forrester.
The Morning Watch is an anonymous poem, published by George P. Putnam, breathing an atmosphere of tender, religious sentiment, and showing considerable descriptive power. It has not, however, sufficient vigor of imagination to atone for the intense subjectivity of thought which throws a dim haze over the best-conceived passages.
J. Ross Browne's Report of the Debates in the Convention of California on the Formation of the State Constitution, is a curious historical document, and will possess still more interest when the antiquities of the modern Eldorado shall become the object of learned research.
The Mothers of the Wise and Good, by Jabez Burns, D.D., reprinted by Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln, Boston, is a collection of interesting incidents, showing the effects of maternal influence on the formation of character, and tracing the excellence of many eminent men in various walks of life, to the pure and exalted virtues with which they were familiar in early life, within the sacred retirements of the domestic circle.
The seventh number of Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlets, issued by Harper and Brothers, is a mere seven-fold repetition of the ancient discontent of the author, whose mirth is changed into a permanent wail, and for whom the "brave o'erhanging firmament has become only a foul and pestilential congregation of vapors." The subject of this number is the "Statue of Hudson," the great deposed Railway King. It says much more of statues in general, than of this particular one of Hudson's. Like all the recent productions of Carlyle, it reminds us of the strugglings of a sick giant, whom his friends in mercy should compel to take to his bed and turn his face to the wall.
An elegant edition of The Illustrated Domestic Bible, by the Rev. Ingram Cobbin, is publishing in numbers by Samuel Hueston. It has brief notes and reflections by the editor, and copious pictorial embellishments, illustrative of Oriental scenery and manners. The work is to be completed in twenty-five numbers.
Stanford and Swords have reprinted a neat edition of Earnestness, or Incidents in the Life of an English Bishop, by Charles B. Taylor, whose rare talent for applying the resources of fiction to the illustration of religious truth has given him an enviable reputation with a large circle of readers. The present work will be found to possess equal interest with the previous religious stories of the author.
Amy Harrington, by the author of The Curate of Linwood, another spirited religious novel, directing a battery of red-hot shot against the Tractarian or Puseyite movement in England, is republished by J. C. Riker. It is written in a tone of uncommon earnestness, and contains some passages of genuine pathos and eloquence.
The Vale of Cedars, by Grace Aguilar, republished by D. Appleton and Co., is a novel of more than ordinary power, indebted for its principal interest to its vivid description of the social condition of Spain during the reign of Isabella. The volume is introduced with an interesting biographical sketch of the able authoress, who died in 1847.