Mr. Mayne Reid, who in sundry letters published in this city last year, claimed that he was the real hero of the Mexican war—in which he served as a lieutenant of the New York volunteers—has recently published in London a brace of volumes under the title of The Rifle Rangers. In his preface he alleges that all his statements offered as facts are strictly true, though at times highly colored for the sake of effect. This will be obvious to every reader, for the book is full of adventures of all sorts—perils by sword, fire, rivals, wild animals, bloodhounds, &c.—which are related in a lively, dashing style, varied at times with descriptions of the scenery, plants, and inhabitants of Central America. One of the London journals, in a review of it, observes, "We would not wish a more lively or interesting companion than Captain Reid,—a thorough Yankee soldier, combining humor, imagination, and dashing bravery in the highest degree." The thorough Yankee, like many others much quoted abroad, is a clever Irish adventurer, who was in the United States altogether some four or five years, engaged chiefly as a writer for the journals in New York and Philadelphia.
Among our frequent foreign correspondents the reader will be pleased to recognize the accomplished and adventurous traveler Mr. John E. Warren, whose work on South America, Para, or Scenes and Adventures on the Banks of the Amazon, has just been published, in two octavo volumes, by Bentley, of London. We present the first of a series from him in our initial number.
The Rev. Francis L. Hawks, LL.D. will publish in the autumn a collection of very rare and curious tracts, illustrative of our early Colonial History, with copious notes, &c. Dr. Hawks may be safely regarded as an authority of the very highest value, upon whatever relates to the religious and social history of the country. He adds to persevering and well-directed research the soundest discrimination, and a judicial fairness; and we trust an impression which has obtained within a few years, that he is engaged upon an extensive work that will illustrate his abilities in this field, is not without foundation.
The celebrated Princess Belgioso, whose achievements in the tented field, as in the showy salons of fashion, have long been familiar, has, as is well known in the gay world of Europe, been a successful cultivator of letters, and has frequently delighted the readers of French and Italian with brilliant sketches of society and manners. She is now traveling in Greece, whence she will proceed into the romantic and picturesque regions of Asia, and the proprietors of the New York Tribune have engaged her as one of the regular foreign correspondents of that journal.
M. Eugene Scribe, the writer of the libretto of Tempesta, just brought out in London, at the age of eighteen years, was placed under the care of M. Dupin, now the President of the French Legislative Assembly, to study the Roman law. Shortly after reaching his majority he began his dramatic career by writing a vaudeville for the Gymnase. His success here led to an engagement to write for the Theatre Francais, and to the establishment of his reputation as a dramatic author. He has composed ten comedies in five acts, and twenty in one, two, or three acts, for the Francais. He has written one hundred and fifty vaudevilles for the Gymnase. As a lyrical poet he stands unequalled for the number of his libretti, having written the poetry of forty grand operas and of one hundred comic operas. His works, exclusive of novels, are three hundred and forty in number.