Before concluding, we take the liberty to remove a mask, not impenetrable to the careful reader, by saying that the writer is a woman. And let us be thankful that a woman so representative of the best culture and instinct of New England cannot wholly conceal herself by the modesty of a pseudonyme. In no way has the Northern spirit roused to oppose the usurpations of Slavery more truly vindicated its high quality than by giving development to that feminine element which has mingled with our national life an influence of genuine power. And to-day there are few men justly claiming the much-abused title of thinkers who do not perceive that the opportunity of our regenerated republic cannot be fully realized, until we cease to press into factitious conformity the faculties, tastes, and—let us not shrink from the odious word—missions of women. The merely literary privilege accorded a generation or two ago is in itself of slight value. Since the success of "Evelina," women have been freely permitted to jingle pretty verses for family newspapers, and to novelize morbid sentiments of the feebler sort. And we see one legitimate result in that flightiness of the feminine mind which, in a lower stratum of current literature, displays inaccurate opinions, feeble prejudices, and finally blossoms into pert vulgarity. But instances of perverted license increase our obligation to Mrs. Child, Mrs. Stowe and to others whose eloquence is only in deeds. Of such as these, and of her whom we may now associate with them, it is not impossible some unborn historian may write, that in certain great perils of American liberty, when the best men could only offer rhetoric, women came forward with demonstration. Yet, after all, our deepest indebtedness to the present series of volumes seems to be this: they bear gentle testimony to what the wise ever believed, that the delicacy of spirit we love to characterize by the dear word "womanly" is not inconsistent with varied and exact information, independent opinion, and the insights of genius.
Finally, we venture to mention, what has been in the minds of many New-England readers, that these books are indissolubly associated with a young life offered in the nation's great necessity. At the time when the first of the series was made public, a shudder ran through our homes, as a regiment, rich in historic names, stood face to face with death. Among the fallen was the only son of her whose writings have been given us. Let us think without bitterness of the sacrifice of one influenced and formed by the rare nature we find in these poems. What better result of culture than to dissipate intellectual mists and uncertainties, and to fix the grasp firmly upon some great practical good? There is nothing wasted in one who lived long enough to show that the refinement acquired and inherited was of the noble kind which could prefer the roughest action for humanity to elegant allurements of gratified taste. The best gift of scholarship is the power it gives a man to descend with all the force of his acquired position, and come into effective union with the world of facts. For it is the crucial test of brave qualities that they are truer and more practical for being filtered through libraries. In reading the "Theages" of Plato we feel a certain respect for the young seeker of wisdom whose only wish is to associate with Socrates; and there is a certain admiration for the father, Demodocus, who joyfully resigns his son, if the teacher will admit him to his friendship and impart all that he can. But it is a higher result of a higher order of society, when a young man with aptitude to follow science and assimilate knowledge sees in the most perilous service of civilization a rarer illumination of mind and heart. In the great scheme of things, where all grades of human worthiness are shown for the benefit of man, this costly instruction shall not fail of fruit. And so the deepest moral that comes to us from the "Tragedy of Errors" seems a prophetic memorial of the soldier for constitutional liberty with whom it will be long connected. The wealth of life—so we read the final meaning of these verses—is in its discipline; and the graceful dreams of the poet, and the quickened intellect of the scholar, are but humble instruments for the helping of mankind.
A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Policy of Count Cavour. Delivered in the Hall of the New York Historical Society, February 20, 1862. By VINCENZO BOTTA, Ph.D., Professor of Italian Literature in the New York University, late Member of the Parliament, and Professor of Philosophy in the Colleges of Sardinia. New York: G.P. Putnam. 8vo. pp. 108.
This is a most admirable tribute to one of the greatest men of our age, by a writer singularly well qualified in all respects to do justice to his rich and comprehensive theme. Professor Botta is a native of Northern Italy, in the first place, and thus by inheritance and natural transmission is heir to a great deal of knowledge as to the important movements of which Cavour was the mainspring, which a foreigner could acquire only by diligent study and inquiry. In the next place, he has not been exclusively a secluded student, but he has taken part in the great political drama which he commemorates, and has been brought into personal relations with the illustrious man whose worth he here sets forth with such ample knowledge, such generous devotion, such patriotic fervor. And lastly, he is a man of distinguished literary ability, wielding the language of his adopted country with an ease and grace which hardly leave a suspicion that he was not writing his vernacular tongue. A namesake of his—whether a relation or not, we are not informed—has written "in very choice Italian" a history of the American Revolution; and the work before us, relating in such excellent English the leading events of a glorious Italian revolution, is a partial payment of the debt of gratitude contracted by the publication of that classical production.
But a writer of inferior opportunities and inferior capacity to Professor Botta could hardly have failed to produce an attractive and interesting work, with such a subject. There never was a life which stood less in need of the embellishments of rhetoric, which could rest more confidently and securely upon its plain, unvarnished truth, than that of Count Cavour. He was a man of the highest order of greatness; and when we have said that, we have also said that he was a man of simplicity, directness, and transparency. A man of the first class is always easily interpreted and understood. The biographer of Cavour has nothing to do but to recount simply and consecutively what he said and what he did, and his task is accomplished: no great statesman has less need of apology or justification; no one's name is less associated with doubtful acts or questionable policy. His ends were not more noble than was the path in which he moved towards them direct. Professor Botta has fully comprehended the advantages derived from the nature of his subject, and has confined himself to the task of relating in simple and vigorous English the life and acts of Cavour from his birth to his death. He has given us a rapid and condensed summary, but nothing of importance is omitted, and surely enough is told to vindicate for Cavour the highest rank which the enthusiastic admiration and gratitude of his countrymen have accorded to him. Where can we find a nobler life? And, take him all in all, whom shall we pronounce to have been a greater statesman? What variety of power he showed, and what wealth of resources he had at command! Without the pride and coldness of Pitt, the private vices of Fox, the tempestuous and ill-regulated sensibility of Burke, he had the useful and commanding intellectual qualities of all the three, except the splendid and imaginative eloquence of the last.
This life of Cavour, and the incidental sketches of his associates which it includes, will have a tendency to correct some of the erroneous impressions current among us as to the intellectual qualities and temperament of the Italian people. The common, or, at least, a very prevalent, notion concerning them is that they are an impassioned, imaginative, excitable, visionary race, capable of brilliant individual efforts, but deficient in the power of organization and combination, and in patience and practical sagacity. Some of us go, or have gone, farther, and have supposed that the Austrian domination in Italy was the necessary consequence of want of manliness and persistency in the people of Italy, and was perhaps as much for their good as the dangerous boon of independence would have been. All such prejudices will be removed by a candid perusal of this memoir. Cavour himself, as a statesman and a man, was of exactly that stamp which we flatter ourselves to be the exclusive growth of America and England. He was nothing of a visionary, nothing of a political pedant, nothing of a doctrinaire. Franklin himself had not a more practical understanding, or more of large, plain, roundabout sense. He had, too, Franklin's shrewdness, his love of humor, and his relish for the natural pleasures of life. He had a large amount of patience, the least showy, but perhaps the most important, of the qualifications of a great statesman. And in his glorious career he was warmly and generously sustained, not merely by the king, and by the favored classes, but by the people, whose efforts and sacrifices have shown how worthy they were of the freedom they have won. We speak here more particularly of the people of the kingdom of Sardinia; but what we say in praise of them may be extended to the people of Italy generally. The history of Italy for the last fifteen years is a glorious chapter in the history of the world. Whatever of active courage and passive endurance has in times past made the name of Roman illustrious, the events of these years have proved to belong equally to the name of Italian.
But we are wandering from Count Cavour and Professor Botta. We have to thank the latter for enriching the literature of his adopted country with a memoir which in the lucid beauty and transparent flow of its style reminds the Italian scholar of the charm of Boccaccio's limpid narrative, and is besides animated with a patriot's enthusiasm and elevated by a statesman's comprehension. A more cordial, heart-warming book we have not for a long time read.
A Treatise on Some of the Insects Injurious to Vegetation. By THADDEUS WILLIAM HARRIS, M.D. A New Edition, enlarged and improved, with Additions from the Author's Manuscripts, and Original Notes. Illustrated by Engravings drawn from Nature under the Supervision of Professor Agassiz. Edited by Charles L. Flint, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. 8vo.
This handsome octavo, prepared with such scientific care, is for the special benefit of Agriculture; and the order, method, and comprehensiveness so evident throughout the Treatise compel the admiration of all who study its beautifully illustrated pages. The community is largely benefited by such an aid to the improvement of pursuits in which so many are concerned; and no cultivator of the soil can safely be ignorant of what Dr. Harris has studied and put on record for the use of those whose honorable occupation it is to till the earth.
As a work of Art we cannot refrain from special praise of the book before us. Turning over its leaves is like a spring or summer ramble in the country. All creeping and flying things seem harmlessly swarming in vivid beauty of color over its pages. Such gorgeous moths we never saw before out of the flower-beds, and there are some butterflies and caterpillars reposing here and there between the leaves that must have slipped in and gone to sleep on a fine warm day in July.