Precor te, O Domine,
Ut defendas animam;
Ante diem si obirem,
Precor te, O Domine,
Us servares animam.
Hoc que precor pro Iesu!'
WORKS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Vols. I. & II. New York: G.P. Putnam.
BAYARD TAYLOR has the pleasant art of communicating personal experiences in a personal way. It is not an unknown X, an invisible essence of criticism, which travels for us in his sketches, but a veritable traveler, speaking, Irving-like, of what he sees, so that we see and feel with him. In these volumes, the ups and downs, the poverties and even the ignorances of the young traveler are set forth—not paraded—with great vividness, and we come to the end of each chapter as if it were the scene of a good old-fashioned comedy. CORYATT without his crudities, if we can imagine such a thing, suggests himself, with alternations of 'HERODOTUS his gossip' without his craving credulity. Perhaps these volumes explain more than any of their predecessors the causes of TAYLOR'S popularity, and like them will do good work in stimulating that love of travel which with many becomes the absorbing passion sung by MULLER,—'Wandern! ach! Wandern!'
THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Edited by Epes Sargent. New York: G.P. Putnam. 1862.
A beautifully printed and bound volume, on the best paper, with two fine illustrations,—one by HOPPIN, setting forth Miss Kilmansegg and her golden leg with truly Teutonic grotesquerie. It contains Hood's Poems, never made more attractively readable than in this edition. As a gift it would be difficult to find a work which would be more generally acceptable to either old or young.