Mr. Henry Rogers, of Birmingham, has published in London two stout volumes of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review. They are not the best things that ever appeared under the old "buff and blue," though they are neat and very readable. Hitherto Professor Rogers has not been known in literature, except by an edition of the works of Burke. The reviewals or essays in this collection are divided into biographical, critical, theological, and political. The first volume consists principally of a series of sketches of great minds,—in the style, half-biographical, half-critical, of which so many admirable specimens have adorned the literature of this age. Indeed, such demonstrations in mental anatomy have been a favorite study in all ages. Among Mr. Rogers's subjects, are Pascal, Luther, Leibnitz, and Plato, and he promises sketches of Descartes, Malabranche, Hobbes, Berkeley, and Locke. The first article, on Thomas Fuller, may look rather dry at first; but the interest increases, we admire the quaintness of old Fuller, and not less the fine, accurate, and complete picture given of his life, character, and works. In this, as in the other biographical articles, Mr. Rogers tells his story fluently. If he has not the wit of Sydney Smith, nor the brilliance of Macaulay, he has not the prosiness of Alison, nor the bitterness of Gifford. He is witty with Fuller, sarcastic with Marvell, energetic with Luther, philosophical and precise with Leibnitz, quietly satirical with Pascal, and reflective and intellectual with Plato. "Dead as a last year's reviewal" is no longer among the proverbs. Books are too numerous to be read, and people make libraries of the quarterlies,—thanks to the facilities afforded by Mr. Leonard Scott! And reviews, properly written,—evincing some knowledge of the books which furnish their titles, are very delightful and useful reading, frequently more so than the productions which suggest them, of which they ought always to give an intelligible description. And this condition is fulfilled almost always by the reviews published in London and Edinburgh. Our North American sometimes gives us tolerably faithful abstracts, and its readers would be glad if its writers would confine themselves to such labors. But we read an article in it not long ago, under the title of Mr. Carey's "Past and Present," which contained no further allusion to this book, nor the slightest evidence that the "reviewer" had ever seen it. On the other hand, the last number contains a paper on the Homeric question, purporting to have been occasioned by Mr. Grote's History of Greece, but deriving its learning, we understand, altogether from Mr. Mure's History of Greek Literature, a work so extensive that it is not likely to be reprinted, or largely imported.
This custom which now obtains, of reprinting reviewals, we believe was begun in this country, where Mr. Emerson brought out a collection of Carlyle's Essays, Andrews Norton one of Macaulay's, Dr. Furness one of Professor Wilson's, Mr. Edward Carey one of Lord Jeffrey's, &c. several years before any such collections appeared in England.
Respecting the Holy Land, no work of so much absolute value has appeared since Dr. Robinson's, as the Historical and Geographical Sketch by Rabbi Joseph Schwartz, in a large and thick octavo, with numerous illustrations, lately published in Philadelphia by Mr. Hart. Rabbi Schwartz resided in Palestine sixteen years, and he is the only Jew of eminence who has written of the country from actual observation, since the time of Benjamin of Tudela. The learned author wrote his work in Hebrew, and it has been translated by Rabbi Isaac Leeser, one of the ablest divines in Philadelphia. It is addressed particularly to Jewish readers, to whom the translator remarks in his preface, "It is hoped that it may contribute to extend the knowledge of Palestine, and rouse many to study the rich treasures which our ancient literature affords, and also to enkindle sympathy and kind acts for those of our brothers who still cling to the soil of our ancestors and love the dust in which many of our saints sleep in death, awaiting a glorious resurrection and immortality."
Mr. John R. Thompson, the accomplished and much esteemed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, whose genuine and intelligent love of literature is illustrated in every number of his excellent magazine, has just published a wise and eloquent address on the present state of education in Virginia, which was delivered before the literary societies of Washington College, at Lexington. It discloses the causes of the ignorance of reading and writing by seventy thousand adults in Virginia, and forcibly and impressively urges the necessity of a thorough literary culture to the common prosperity.
A New Play by Mr. Marston, founded on the story of Philip Augustus of France and Marie de Méranie, has been put into rehearsal at the Olympic Theater in London.