Considered from a scientific point of view, some of the gravest errors into which the author has fallen are the suppositions, that the perihelia and nodes of the planetary orbits move uniformly, and that they can ever become exactly circular. At the end of about twenty-four thousand years the eccentricity of the earth's orbit will be smaller than at any other time during the next two hundred thousand, at least; but it will begin to increase again long before the orbit becomes circular. Astronomers have long known that the eccentricity of Mercury's orbit will never be much greater or much less than it is now; and moreover, instead of diminishing, as stated by Professor Mitchell, it is increasing, and has been increasing for the last hundred thousand years.
Finally, the chapter closes with an attempt to state the principle known to mathematicians as "the law of the conservation of areas," which statement is entirely unlike the correct one in nearly every particular.
It will be observed that we have criticized this work from a scientific rather than from a popular point of view. As questions of popular interest, it is perhaps of very little importance whether the earth's orbit will or will not become circular in the course of millions of years, or in what the principle of areas consists or does not consist. But if such facts or principles are to be stated at all, we have a right to see them stated correctly. However, in the first nine chapters, which part of the book will be most read, few mistakes of any importance occur, and the method pursued by Newton in deducing the law of gravitation is explained in the author's most felicitous style.
El Fureidîs. By the Author of "The Lamplighter" and "Mabel Vaughan." Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
That large army of readers whose mere number gave celebrity at once to the authoress of "The Lamplighter" will at first be disappointed with what they may call the location of this new romance by Miss Cummins. The scene is laid in Syria, instead of New England, and the "village" known to New Yorkers as Boston gives way to "El Fureidîs," a village in the valley of Lebanon. But while so swift a transition from the West to the East may disappoint that "Expectation" which Fletcher tells us "sits i' the air," and which we all know is not to be balked with impunity, there can be no doubt, that, in shifting the scene, the authoress has enabled us to judge her essential talent with more accuracy. Possessing none of the elements which are thought essential to the production of a sensation, "The Lamplighter" forced itself into notice as a "sensation book." The writer was innocent of all the grave literary crimes implied in such a distinction. The first hundred and fifty pages were as simple, and as true to ordinary nature, as the daisies and buttercups of the common fields; the remaining two hundred pages repeated the stereotyped traditions and customary hearsays which make up the capital of every professional story-teller. The book began in the spirit of Jane Austen, and ended in that of Jane Porter.
In "El Fureidîs" everything really native to the sentiment and experience of Miss Cummins is exhibited in its last perfection, with the addition of a positive, though not creative, faculty of imagination. Feeling a strong attraction for all that related to the East, through an accidental connection with friends who in conversation discoursed of its peculiarities and wonders, she was led to an extensive and thorough study of the numerous eminent scholars and travellers who have recorded their experience and researches in Syria and Damascus. Gradually she obtained a vivid internal vision of the scenery, and a practical acquaintance with the details of life, of those far-off Eastern lands. On this imaginative reproduction of the external characteristics of the Orient she projected her own standards of excellence and ideals of character; and the result is the present romance, the most elaborate and the most pleasing expression of her genius.
There is hardly anything in the work which can rightfully be called plot. The incidents are not combined, but happen. A shy, sensitive, fastidious, high- minded, and somewhat melancholy and dissatisfied Englishman, by the name of Meredith, travelling from Beyrout to Lebanon, falls in love with a Christian maiden by the name of Havilah. She rejects him, on the ground, that, however blessed with all human virtues, he is deficient in Christian graces. One of those rare women who combine the most exquisite sensuous beauty with the beauty of holiness, she cannot consent to marry, unless souls are joined, as well as hands. Meredith, in the course of the somewhat rambling narrative, "experiences religion," and the heroine then feels for him that affection which she did not feel even in those moments when he recklessly risked his life to save hers. In regard to characterization, Meredith, the hero, is throughout a mere name, without personality; but the authoress has succeeded in transforming Havilah from an abstract proposition into an individual existence. Her Bedouin lover, the wild, fierce, passionate Arab boy, Abdoul, with his vehement wrath and no less vehement love, passing from a frustrated design to assassinate Meredith, whom he considered the accepted lover of Havilah, to an abject prostration of his whole being, corporeal and mental, at the feet of his mistress, saluting them with "a devouring storm of kisses," is by far the most intense and successful effort at characterization in the whole volume. The conclusion of the story, which results in the acceptance by Meredith of the conditions enforced by the celestial purity of the heroine, will be far less satisfactory to the majority of readers than if Havilah had been represented as possessed of sufficient spiritual power to convert her passionate Arab lover into a being fit to be a Christian husband. By all the accredited rules of the logic of passion, Abdoul deserved her, rather than Meredith. Leaving, however, all those considerations which relate to the management of the story as connected with the impulses of the characters, great praise cannot be denied to the authoress for her conception and development of the character of Havilah. Virgin innocence has rarely been more happily combined with intellectual culture, and the reader follows the course of her thoughts--and so vital are her thoughts that they cause all the real events of the story--with a tranquil delight in her beautiful simplicity and intelligent affectionateness, compared with which the pleasure derived from the ordinary stimulants of romance is poor and tame. At least two- thirds of the volume are devoted to descriptions of Eastern scenery, habits, customs, manners, and men, and these are generally excellent. Altogether, the book will add to the reputation of the authoress.
Life and Times of General Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J.F.H. CLAIBORNE. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York: Harper & Brothers.
The adventures of General Dale, Mr. Claiborne tells us, were taken from his own lips by the author and two friends, and from the notes of all three a memoir was compiled, but the MSS. were lost in the Mississippi. We regret that Dale's own words were thus lost; for the stories of the hardy partisan are not improved by his biographer's well-meant efforts to tell them in more graceful language. Mr. Claiborne's cheap eloquence is perhaps suited to the unfastidious taste of a lower latitude; but we prefer those stories, too few in number, in which the homely words of Dale are preserved.
Dale does not appear to have done anything to warrant this "attempt on his life," being no more remarkable than hundreds of others. He saw several distinguished men; but of his anecdotes about them we can only quote the old opinion, that the good stories are not new, and the new are not good. As there is nothing particularly interesting in the subject, so there is no peculiar charm thrown around it by the manner in which Mr. Claiborne has executed his task. A noticeable and very comic feature is presented in the praises which he has interpolated, when ever any acquaintance of his is referred to. We readily acquiesce, when we are told that Mr. A is a model citizen, and that Mr. B is alike unsurpassed in public and private life; but the latter statement becomes less intensely gratifying when we learn the fact that Mr. C also has no superior, and that there are no better or abler men than D, E, F, or G. We were aware that Mississippi was uncommonly fortunate in having meritorious sons, but not that so singularly exact an equality existed among them. Are they all best? It is like the case of the volunteer regiment in which they were all Major- Generals. Occasional eminence we can easily believe, but a table-land of merit is more than we are prepared for; and we are strongly led to suspect that praise so lavishly given may be cheaply won.