The Life of Dr. Chalmers, by Dr. Hanna, will extend to four volumes; the third, just re-published by the Harpers, is the most interesting yet issued. We observe that a volume of Reminiscences of Chalmers has been published in London, by Mr. John Anderson.
Alice Carey's Clovernook, or Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West, has just been published by Mr. Redfield, in one volume, illustrated by Darley. To those who have read one of the introductory chapters of this work which we copied into the International for November, it seems quite unnecessary to say any thing in illustration or commendation of the author's genius; they will be likely to purchase Clovernook as soon as they are advised of its appearance. We have nothing in our literature, descriptive of country life, to be compared with it, for effective painting or for truthfulness. The scene is laid in Ohio—near Cincinnati—while a suburban village is gradually growing up from the simple cottage in the wilderness till it becomes a favorite resort of patrician families; and few novelists have been more happy in describing the "progress of society," or exhibited, in such performances, more humor, tenderness, or pathos.
We have from Ticknor & Co., of Boston, a second series of Greenwood Leaves, by the public's old favorite, Grace Greenwood. The tales which it embraces are in the author's happiest vein, and the letters are dashing and piquant, but liable to some objections which we might make in a longer notice. The same publishers have issued a capital book for children, entitled Recollections of My Childhood, by the same author.
Caroline Cheesebro is another young magazinist, whose productions have been very popular. Her Dreamland by Daylight (published by Redfield), a collection of tales and sketches, contains much fine sentiment and displays a ready fancy and a just appreciation of social life, but she has a little less individuality than Miss Carey or Grace Greenwood.
It will gratify every reader of American history to learn that we are soon to have three phases of the character of Washington, presented by men so eminent as Daniel Webster, Mr. Irving, and Mr. Bancroft. Mr. Webster, we have reason to believe, has nearly completed his Memoir of the Political Life of the great Chief; Mr. Irving's work, which has been some time announced, will make us familiar with his personal qualities, and Mr. Bancroft's History of the Revolution will display his military career as it has never before been exhibited, as it can be presented by none but our greatest historian. The first volume of Mr. Bancroft's work on the Revolution is passing rapidly through the press, and it will doubtless be published early in the spring. It has been kept back by the author's failure to obtain, until within a few weeks past, certain important documents necessary to its completion.
Mr. Hart of Philadelphia, has just published A Method of Horsemanship, founded on new Principles, and including the Breaking and Training of Horses, with Instructions for obtaining a good Seat; illustrated with Engravings: by F. Baucher. It is translated from the ninth Paris edition, and makes a handsome duodecimo. Among the many systems of horsemanship which have appeared none has fallen under our notice so valuable as this. The chief defect of previous publications has been that they were mere collections of rules, applicable to particular cases only, based on no established principles, and therefore as impracticable for general purposes as crude and unphilosophical in design. Ignorance was at the root of this. The authors did not understand the nature of the animal about which they professed to teach so much, and their rules were quite as applicable to the bear or the hyena. The agent employed by the old masters was force—severe bitting, hard whipping, and deep spurring. Some went so far as to recommend the use of fire, in extreme cases—thus establishing a kind of equine martyrdom, in which the poor brute suffered indeed, but without any advantage to the faith of his more brutal persecutors. These various punishments were prescribed with the utmost coolness, often with jocularity, as if the horse under the worst tortures were only getting his deserts, and as if the amount and importance of his laborious services by no means entitled him to any forbearance. Human ingenuity is capable of absolute development in the direction of cruelty; it seems to be the most visible and satisfying side of our capabilities; no man who commits a slow murder, whether on one animal or another, can doubt that he has done something—the proof stares him in the face. Then again, murder is adapted to the lowest capacities; there is not a groom in the land less capable of taking life than the finest gentleman. The issue of all this has been—if the horse were not killed at once—to shorten his days, to lessen his intelligence, to injure his form, and to degrade and dwindle his race, from generation to generation.