Another story of the late rebellion. And we may make up our mind to be overloaded with stories of this description for at least the next ten years. "The Boy in Blue" is the latest we have seen, and is an indifferent one enough. There are plots sufficient in the book for two or three good stories, but they are badly managed, and the various parts of the story clumsily put together. "The Boy in Blue" proves to be a girl, who thus unsexed herself for the double purpose of thwarting the vengeance of a rejected lover, whom she refused to marry because he was disloyal, and of being near a loyal lover whom she afterward married. The scene opens in Massachusetts, jumps abruptly to the army of the Potomac, and from there to that of the Cumberland, where the principal events occur. The characters are nearly all East Tennesseeans, and are made to figure in the story without any regard to time or place. The book is one we cannot recommend; for none of the characters are any better than the law allows them to be. The heroine is no model for any virtuous modest girl; for no woman of correct training or good morals could dress herself in the habiliments of the opposite sex. If the authoress cannot write a better story than this one, she had better give her time and attention to something else than novel writing. It is not her forte.
CATHOLIC ANECDOTES; OR, THE CATECHISM IN EXAMPLES.
The Apostles' Creed, etc. Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. 12mo., pp. 236. New York: D. & J Sadlier. 1865.
An excellent little book, and should meet with a general circulation. The present volume contains anecdotes on the different articles of the Creed, and is to be followed, we believe, by two more on the other portions of the Catechism. The translation is well made, and the book is very neatly got up. We earnestly recommend it to our readers as a book worthy of universal circulation.
THE METROPOLITES; OR, KNOW THY NEIGHBOR.
A Novel, by Robert St. Clar. 12mo., pp. 575. The American News Company. 1865.
Here is a formidable volume describing fashionable society in New York. The parentage of the leading character in the story is at first unknown, but is supposed to be the son of some German emigrant who was shipwrecked and drowned off the coast. He was brought up by a German woman, and passed through all phases of New York life, from being a bootblack and newsboy, to find himself an office boy with a lawyer, who, seeing in him talent, sent him to college and paid for his education. Nathan P. Trenk is the cognomen by which this person is designated [{288}] in the story. The author seems to have taken every good quality possessed by different men and placed them all in the person of his beloved Nathan. His hero far exceeds in perfection the gods of the ancients. He speaks French like a Frenchman; German like a German; Spanish like a Spaniard; English of course, and we are led to infer that if he chose he could converse in the language of Timbuctoo, Malay, or in the Sanscrit. In fact, he excelled in all things—was perfect in dancing, music, tragedy, yachting, and the law. He is made to possess nearly all these qualities before he was even sent to school!! He was also better looking than any of his comrades—a perfect Apollo. One gets tired of this hero called Nathan, and cannot help asking, with the poet,
"How one small head could hold it all."
As a story, "The Metropolites" is a failure. There are many good passages in it; but it is too inflated in style, too absurd and impossible in its scope and plot, and too pretentious, to suit the merest tyro in light literature. It ends too abruptly—in fact, the story is not finished; for only one or two of the characters are disposed of, and you are left to imagine what became of the author's beau ideal of a man—Nathan. But there is no danger of such a question troubling the reader, for it is very few will have the patience to wade through its pages to the end. If there be any such, we pity them.
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.
Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D. New York: P. O'Shea.
We have seen some of the advance sheets of Dr. Brownson's forthcoming work with this title. The book will be out in the course of this month. It will make a very handsome octavo volume of nearly 500 pages, elegantly printed. It appears from what we have seen of it to have been written with great care, and to be a profoundly philosophical work on the principles of government, and especially on the constitution of the United States.
NATURAL HISTORY.
A Manual of Zoology for Schools, Colleges, and the General Reader. By Sanborn Tenney, A.M. Illustrated. 8vo., pp. 540. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1865.