The New Gymnastics for Men, Women, and Children. By Dio Lewis, M.D. With three hundred illustrations. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862.
It is with sincerest pleasure that we commend this excellent book to the attention of every teacher and parent in America. We might add that we commend it as a gift book which would be most acceptable to youth, since it teaches them several hundred exercises, the greater portion of which require little or no apparatus, and none which cannot be very readily fitted up in almost any house. This book, moreover, includes a translation of Prof. Klogs's 'Dumb Bell Instructor' and Prof. Schreber's 'Pangymnastikon.' By the way, is this the same work of Schreber's which was translated some years ago by Prof. Sedgwick, of New York, for his Gymnastic Journal? We remember the latter as a work of solid merit, recommending on sound anatomical principles the means of cure by gymnastics and calisthenics for many of the ills that flesh is heir to. We ask, not remembering accurately, and from observing that Prof, Lewis confesses to having greatly abridged the volume in question, a plan never to be commended in any translation whatever. But for the whole work, with this exception, we have only praise. It is, we believe, the most practical, sensible book and the one most easy of application on this subject extant in any language. Let all interested remember that while it is indispensable to every gymnasium and every gymnast, its price is only one dollar.
Eyes and Ears. By Henry Ward Beecher. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862. New York: G. P. Putnam. 1862.
The crisp, careless dozen and a half of lines which Mr. Beecher snaps at his readers by way of preface to this collection of papers, form the best review of its contents which will probably be written. They came principally, as he informs us, from the New York Ledger, and partially from the Independent; were consequently written very much for the many, and very little for the student of elaborate literature. They are unstudied, unpretentious—true nugæ venales, 'representing the impressions of happy homes, or the moods and musings of the movement * * fragmentary and careless as even a newspaper style will permit.' But, beyond this, we may assure the reader that these 'scintillant trifles' are knocked off from no second-rate material and by no awkward hand, but by one firm and confident in hasty and trivial efforts as in great ones, and producing the great even in the little. Many of these essay-lets have a peculiar charm: they seem to crave expansion—we wish them longer, and are as little pleased to find a fresh title whipping itself in before our eyes as children are at a rapidly managed magic-lantern show, when the impatient exhibitor presents a View in Egypt to eyes which have hardly begun to take in Solomon's Temple. We like them far better than the majority of the more elaborate, infinitely conceited, narrow-minded, squeakingly-witty essays with which the country has been of late visited for its sins from the Country Parson and his disciples.
Slavery in South Carolina, and the Ex-Slaves; or, The Port Royal Mission. By Mrs. A. M. French. New York: Winchell M. French, No. 5 Beekman street, 1862.
No one can write a book, however unpretentious, on the subject of slavery, and fill it with plain facts, without making a startling volume. Take the subject up on the grounds of the barest humanity, even as one would the welfare of animals; laying aside all 'Abolition' or anti-abolition views whatever, and we find a tremendous abyss of abuses, inexcusable even according to the principles of the most rabid pro-slavery disciple. Prominent among the facts which such a work as the present presents, is the proof that the black, whatever his degree of intelligence may be, is abundantly capable, under enlightened discipline, of becoming infinitely more profitable to himself and to the world than he has ever yet been. From the tales of distress, from the bewildering, sorrowful negro piety, from the jargon and rags and tears of poor childish contrabands, as simply and sadly set forth by Mrs. French, making every allowance, and penetrating to the depth of the dark problem, we still realize one tremendous truth—that Slavery, as a principle of government, is a lie, and that from a politico-economical point of view it has been a failure. It is a waste of power, and like every waste of human power results in suffering.
The fifty-three chapters of the work before us present the results of the Port Royal Mission, the truths gleaned from the contrabands of their past life, great additions to our Northern knowledge of the practical treatment of slaves, many observations on these facts, and an array of Instances to prove the capacity of the negro. It will be spoken of as an Abolition work, and such it is; but we—who look beyond and above Abolition, and hold the higher doctrines of Emancipation originally set forth in these columns—to the broad interests of humanity, and of the benefit which is to accrue in the first place to the white race from free labor—still commend it as full of material of the most valuable description to the great cause of progress.
The work is fairly printed, but, we regret to add, is disfigured by a mass of wretched woodcuts of the worst possible design, which look as if they had been gleaned from old Abolition tracts, and which we trust will be omitted from the next edition.
Salome, the Daughter of Herodias. A Dramatic Poem. New York; Putnam, 532 Broadway.
When we criticize ever so lightly any modern poetical treatment of an antique subject, we may as well premise that we do so as something which is only partially true, since few writers have ever so perfectly penetrated any foreign national spirit as to reproduce it—let us say, like a translation. Even translations from the Greek are made Miltonically, or Pope-ishly, or Shakespearian-ally, and seldom with that racy literalness which characterizes Carlyle's occasional bits of German poetic version. Sometimes, as in the present instance, the old form is almost unattainable, for Hebrew poetry and the modes of speech used at Herod's court are too little known in their first fresh life to be vividly reproduced. Consequently the more modern forms are indispensable. But, from the stand-point of English poetry, Salome is a production of more than marked ability—it is a boldly conceived, genially executed, oftentimes a truly superb poem. The repentance of Salome has a broad lyrical and musical sweep which seems like an opera of grand passions when the trivial associations of the opera are forgotten. In the concluding scenes we seem to feel the inspiration of Goethe and of Æschylus, for the author has combined with rare tact the spirit of avenging fate with that of atonement—the Pagan and the Christian; and if the language be here and there meagre or lack concentrativeness, we pardon it in consideration of the high idea by which plot, incident, and character are swayed. In one scene, however—the dialogue between Antonius and the Jew—we find a degree of historic truth, a reproduction in dramatic form of the sublime spirit of Hebrew poetry, and an æsthetic color which, had it been maintained throughout, would have neutralized our introductory remarks. This scene is of itself a real poem. Herodias is, we may add, consistent, and bravely accented in every thought and word; had she, however, been more concise, she would have been more consistent to her earnestly malignant nature. 'But, then, Shakespeare exaggerated the monologue!'