Within a few years the tide of English and of American travel has flown far more than of old over Scandinavia, a land so little known as to bear a prestige of strange mystery to many. Books of travel describing it are comparatively rare; it has not, like Germany or England, been 'done to death,' and the consequence is, that a good book describing it, like this of Taylor's, has a peculiar charm of freshness and of novelty. In it, as in every volume of his travels, Bayard Taylor gives us the impression that the country in question is his specialty and favorite, the result being a thoroughly genial account of all he saw. Readers not familiar with this series may be pleased to know that as regards typography, illustration, and binding, it is in all respects elegant, though furnished at an extremely moderate price.
Edwin Brothertoft. By Theodore Winthrop. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
To a certain extent novels are like dishes; while there is no dispute as to the surpassing excellence of a few, the majority are prized differently, according to individual tastes. Public opinion has unanimously rated the Winthrop novels highly, some readers preferring 'Cecil Dreeme,' while to judge by the press, it would seem that 'Edwin Brothertoft' best pleases the majority. It is certainly a book of marked character, and full of good local historical color. The author had one great merit—he studied from life and truth, and did not rehash what he had read in other novels, as do the majority of story-tellers at the present day, when a romance which is not crammed with palpable apings of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Adam Bede' is becoming a rarity. In 'Edwin Brothertoft' we have a single incident—as in 'John Brent'—the rescue of a captive damsel by a dashing 'raid,' as the nucleus, around which are deftly woven in many incidents, characters, and scenes, all well set forth in the vigorous style of a young writer who was deeply interested in his own work. That he is sometimes rather weakly grotesque, as in his sporting with the negro dialect, which in the person of a servant he affects to discard and yet resumes, is a trifle. That he shows throughout the noblest sympathies and instincts of a gentleman, a philanthropist, and a cosmopolite is, however, something which can not be too highly praised, since it is these indications which lend a grace and a glory to all that Winthrop wrote. Noblesse oblige seems to have been the great consciousness of his nature, and he therefore presented in his life and writings that high type of a gentleman by birth and culture, who without lowering himself one whit, was a reformer, a progressive, yes, a 'radical' in all things where he conceived that the root to be extracted was a great truth.
In many things 'Edwin Brothertoft' is most appropriate to these our times, since its scenes are laid in that Revolutionary War for the cause of freedom, of which this of the present day is, in fact, a repetition. We feel in its every page the anxiety and interest of war, an American war for the right, sweeping along through trials and sorrows. To characterize it in few words, we may say that in it the author reminds us of Cooper, but displays more genius and life than Cooper ever did.
Out of His Head. By T. B. Aldrich. New-York. Carleton.
It is said that the 'grotesque' romance is going out of fashion; if this be so, the beautiful and quaint collection of interwoven fancies before us proves that in literature as in horticulture, the best blooms of certain species are of the latest. Strange, indeed, is the conception of this work—the fancied biography of one literally 'out of his head,' who imagines himself surrounded by a world of people who act very singularly. Madmen are never ordinary; therefore the writer has not, while setting forth the most extraordinary fancies, once transgressed the limits of the probable. This was a bold stroke of genius in the very inception, and it is developed with a subtle tact which can hardly fail to claim the cordial admiration of the most carping critic. It is true that in using the strange aberrations of a lunatic as material for romance, Aldrich has provoked comparison with some of the world's greatest writers; and it is to his credit that he has met them evenly, and that too without in any particular incurring the charge of plagiarism. But had the thema of the work been less ingenious or striking, its defects would have been unnoticed among the beautiful pictures, the unconscious breathings of poetry, and the sweet caprices which twine around the strange plot, as the tendrils and leaves of the vine cover over, yet indicate by their course the fantastic twinings of the parent vine. It is needless to say, that we commend this most agreeable work to our readers. We are glad to see that 'Père Antoine's Date Palm' which has attained so great a popularity, and several other fascinating tales by Aldrich, are incorporated into the present volume as the 'library' of the hero.
Les Miserables. III. Marius. By Victor Hugo. New-York: Carleton.
'Sure an' didn't I tell ye I was a poor scholar,' said the young Irish sham-student-beggar to the gentleman who refused him alms because he could not read. In the same strain, as it seems to us, Victor Hugo might reply to the wearied readers of these tales: 'Why, do they not call themselves miserable?' Miserable indeed is the 'Marius' installment now before us—a mere sensation plot, brilliantly patched here and there with the purpureus pannus, or purple rag of a bit of imperial or later history, 'coached' up for display, but falling lamentably into what under any other name would be called a gross imitation of Eugène Sue. The point of the present volume, to which its scenes tend, is, of course, a robber's den—a decoyed victim—the police in waiting, and a tremendous leap from a window—the whole suggesting Mr. Bourcicault's moral sensational drama, or rather its French originals, to an amusing extent. Still the genius of the author, always erratic, of course, is shown in more than one chapter. The trials and sufferings of 'Marius,' and his noble independence of character, as well as the peculiar and widely differing traits of his friends the students are set forth with great spirit, and with the intention of a good purpose. Victor Hugo is in all his works unequal unless we except 'Hans of Iceland,' which is completely trashy throughout; but he was never more so than in 'The Miserables.' We have spoken of this third part as though its first title were an illustration of the nomen et omen so much believed in of old. We may add that like the Mois of Alexandre Dumas, it has simply an s too much,
The Fly-ing Dutchman. By John Q. Saxe. Illustrated. New-York: Carleton. 1862.
An amusing little series of pictures, drawn and written, setting forth the accidents which befell a 'Dutchman' in catching a fly.