"It consists of extracts from the voluminous writings of a poor gentilhomme of Brittany, during a period of upwards of sixty years, and each extract is a prediction of some one of the great political convulsions which have occurred in this country during that time. Never was there a more correct Vates; but Cassandra herself was not more disregarded than he. The downfall and execution of Louis XVI., the horrors of the Terror, the power and overthrow of Napoleon, the revolution of 1830, and the republic of 1848, were all predicted years before they came to pass; but the poor prophet was set down as a madman by all his literary contemporaries, and during his lifetime not a single newspaper would consent to say any thing about his predictions. What is the most singular thing of all is, that he foretold (years ago, remember—when Louis Philippe was at the height of his power), that the proclamation of the republic would lead to the domination of a member of Napoleon's family, and so it has; though if any one only six months before Louis Napoleon's election had predicted the same thing, he would certainly have been set down as a lunatic. In consequence of this extraordinary foresight of our prophet, people have looked with no little concern to what he says for the future. And alas! they have met with nothing very consolatory. We are, it seems, on the brink of a fearful social crisis, the consequence of which will be the complete destruction of European society as at present constituted; and this destruction is only to be effected by the shedding of rivers of blood, and the weeping of oceans of tears!"
We are pleased to perceive that the writings of Hartley Coleridge are soon to be collected and suitably published. Mr. Moxon advertises as in press, his Poems, with a Memoir of his life, by his brother, the Rev. Derwent Coleridge; Essays and Marginalia, in two volumes; and Lives of Distinguished Northerns, a new edition, in two volumes.
Lamartine receives for his Histoire du Directoire—the sequel of The Girondists—at which he works from fourteen to sixteen hours every day, only 12,000 francs, equal to about $2,400.
Among the "books in press" advertised in London at the beginning of the year, by Bentley, are The Correspondence of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, and the Rev. William Mason, now first published from the original MSS., and edited, with notes, by the Rev. J. Mitford, author of "The Life of Gray." This work will contain the last series of Walpole's unpublished letters. A History of Greek and Roman Classical Literature, with an introduction on each of the languages, biographical notices, and an account of the periods in which each principal author lived and wrote, so far as literature was affected by such history, and observations on the works themselves, by R. W. Browne, one of the professors in King's College, London. And The Literary Veteran, including sketches and anecdotes of the most distinguished literary characters, from 1794 to 1849, by R. P. Gilles.
The Rev. Henry T. Cheever has just published a volume entitled "The Island World of the Pacific," (Harpers,) which for various personal interest, fulness and accuracy of information, and right feeling, is to be preferred to any book on the subject since the appearance of Cook's Voyages. We know of no traveller in Polynesia who has had better opportunities for observation than Mr. Cheever. His abilities as a writer were illustrated by "The Whale and his Captors," published two or three years ago. The style of the present performance is not at all inferior, and it is especially commendable for a perspicuous compactness. So much misrepresentation of the Sandwich and other Islands has appeared lately, that we are glad of an opportunity to commend a book so authoritative and satisfactory upon the whole subject.