they know so well, and of the hours when those old sides of seared timber, all ashine with the sea, plunge and dip into the deep green purity of the mounded waves more joyfully than a deer lies down among the grass of spring, the soft white cloud of foam opening momentarily at the bows, and fading or flying high into the breeze where the sea-gulls toss and shriek,-the joy and beauty of it, all the while, so mingled with the sense of unfathomable danger, and the human effort and sorrow Notices of New Works. ENGLISH TRAITS. By R. W. EMERSON. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1856. [From James Woodhouse, 137 Main Street. The critical editor of the Central Presbyterian, in noticing this volume, very wittily says: "When Mr. Emerson leaves the subject of religion, which he does not understand, and his transcendental vagaries, which perhaps he does understand, though no one else does, and discusses such topics as those which furnish the staple of the book before us, he is intelligible, interesting, and sometimes instructive." We are indeed heartily glad to see something from the pen of the Massachusetts philosopher which we can read with even a moderate assurance that we comprehend it. We have worked to no purpose over "Representative Men" and cudgelled our brains in vain to unravel the tangled thread of his essays, and we had little hope to find "English Traits" any clearer to our perception. But strange to say, the cloudy oracle of the Transcendentalists no sooner sets foot upon the foggy isle of Albion than straightway he becomes wonderfully transparent and comprehensible. He' appears to see more distinctly through a mist than a perfectly serene and lucid atmosphere. True it is that in the earlier pages of the volume, a little of the true Emersonian opacity may be observed in his interviews with Landor, Coleridge, Carlyle and Wordsworth, but when he leaves these great spirits to talk of the English people in the mass, Mr. Emerson speaks in language sufficiently plain, and speaks, for the most part, very good sense. The style of the book is not exactly to our taste. Its prevailing characteristic is abruptness. Short, disconnected paragraphs follow rapidly upon each other throughout. Now, while this style has the advantage of entertaining the reader (who accepts readily the author's conclusions) without wearying him, it is open to the objection of dogmatism. The author refuses to argue out his opinions and bids you adopt them upon their mere enunciation. But we must recollect that Mr. Emerson is an oracle and therefore not complain of his being oracular. Induction, we believe, was never dispensed from the tripod. Mr. Emerson is an extravagant admirer of England and his volume will be read with great satisfaction by the natives of that country everywhere. Fragments from it will be sent around the world in English newspapers. Every colonial journal from Montreal to Madras will draw upon it for strong laudations of the English character. As we unite with Mr. Emerson in feeling a high respect for John Bull, we will quote a few of his commendatory paragraphs from which the reader may derive a good idea of the volume itself. "I find the Englishman," says Mr. Em erson, "to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. They have in themselves what they value in their horses, mettle and bottom. On the day of my arrival at Liverpool, a gentleman, in describing to me the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, happened to say, 'Lord Clarendon has pluck like a cock, and will fight till he dies;' and, what I heard first I heard last, and the one thing the English value, is pluck. The cabmen have it; the merchants have it; the bishops have it; the women have it; the journals have it; the Times newspaper, they say, is the pluckiest thing in England, and Sydney Smith had made it a proverb, that little Lord John Russell, the minister, would take the command of the Channel fleet to-morrow." But this "pluck" is tempered by gentleness, according to our author They are rather manly than warlike. When the war is over, the mask falls from the affectionate and domestic tastes, which make them women in kindness. This union of qualities is fabled in their national legend of Beauty and the Beast, or long before, in the Greek legend of Hermaphrodite. The two sexes are co-present in the English mind. I apply to Britannia, queen of seas and colonies, the words in which her latest novelist portrays his heroine: 'she is as mild as she is game, and as game as she is mild.' The English delight in the antagonism which combines in one person the extremes of courage and tenderness. Nelson, dying at Trafalgar, sends his love to Lord Collingwood, and, like an innocent schoolboy that goes to bed, says, 'Kiss me, Hardy,' and turns to sleep. Lord Collingwood, his comrade, was of a nature the most affectionate and domestic. Admiral Rodney's figure approached to delicacy and effeminacy, and he declared himself very sensible to fear, which he surmounted only by considerations of honour and public duty. Clarendon says, the Duke of Buckingham was so modest and gentle, that some courtiers attempted to put affronts on him, until they found that this modesty and effeminacy was only a mask for the most terrible determination. And Sir James Edward Parry said, the other day, of Sir John Franklin, that, if he found Wellington Sound open, he explored it; for he was a man who never turned his back on a danger, yet of that tenderness, that he would not brush away a musquito.' Even for their highwaymen the same virtue is claimed, and Robin Hood comes described to us as mitissimus prædonum, the gentlest thief. But they know where their war-dogs lie. Cromwell, Blake, Marlborough, Chatham, Nelson, and Wellington, are not to be trifled with, and the brutal strength which lies at the bottom of society, the animal ferocity of the quays and cockpits, the bullies of the costarmongers of Shoreditch, Seven Dials, and Spitalfields, they know how to wake up." In ascribing to the English a love of the truth, Mr. Emerson renders them only justice. It is this quality which challenges for them the respect of all the world, and which redeems even the hauteur and absurd importance and narrow selfishness of Milor on his travels. Mr. Emerson says on this point— "Their practical power rests on their national sincerity. Veracity derives from instinct, and marks superiority in organization. Nature has endowed some animals with cunning, as a compensation for strength withheld; but it has provoked the malice of all others, as if avengers of public wrong. In the nobler kinds, where strength could be afforded, her races are loyal to truth, as truth is the foundation of the social state. Beasts that make no truce with man, do not break faith with each other. 'Tis said, that the wolf, who makes a cache of his prey, and brings his fellows with him to the spot, if on digging, it is not found, is instantly and unresistingly torn in pieces. English veracity seems to result on a sounder animal structure, as if they could afford it. They are blunt in saying what they think, sparing of promises, and they require plain dealing of others. We will not have to do with a man in a mask. know the truth. Draw a straight line, hit whom and where it will. Alfred, whom the affection of the nation makes the type of their race, is called by his friend Asser, the truth-speaker; Aluredus veridicus. Geoffrey of Monmouth says of King Aurelius, uncle of Arthur, that 'above all things he hated a lie.' The Northman Guttorm said to King Olaf, it is royal work to fulfil royal words.' The mottoes of their families are monitory proverbs, as, Fare fac,-Say, do,-of the Fairfaxes; Say and seal, of the house of Fiennes; Vero nil verius, of the De Veres. To be king of their word, is their pride. When they unmask cant, they say, 'the English of this is,' &c.; and to give the lie is the extreme insult. The phrase of the lowest of the people is 'honour bright,' and their vulgar praise, his word is as good as his bond.'" Let us Of the intellectual side of the national character the following, referring to a past age, must suffice "A man must think that age well taught and thoughtful, by which masques and poems, like those of Ben Jonson, full of heroic sentiment in a manly style, were received with favour. The unique fact in literary history, the unsurprised reception of Shakspeare; the reception proved by his making his fortune; and the apathy proved by the absence of all contemporary panegyric-seems to demonstrate an elevation of the people. Judge of the splendour of a nation, by the insignificance of great individuals in it." All this is greatly to England's praise. Per contra, and only to establish the author's independence, we will pick out a bit or two of censure. We are not very sure that we fully know what the following means, but some of our readers may. "The poetry of course is low and prosaic; only now and then, as in Wordsworth, conscientious; or in Byron, passional; or in Tennyson, factitious. But if I should count the poets who have contributed to the bible of existing England sentences of guidance and consolation which are still glowing and effective,how few! Shall I find my heavenly bread in the reigning poets? Where is great design in modern English poetry? The English have lost sight of the fact that poetry exists to speak the spiritual law, and that no wealth of description or of fancy is yet essentially new, and out of the limits of prose, until this condition is reached. Therefore the grave old poets, like the Greek artists, heeded their designs, and less considered the finish. It was their office to lead to the divine sources, out of which all this, and much more, readily springs; and, if this religion is in the poetry, it raises us to some purpose, and we can well afford some staidness, or hardness, or want of popu lar tune in the verses." The greatest defect in the English character, their servility to rank, the flunkeyism which Thackeray has held up to immortal ridicule, Mr. Emerson passes over, but he thus faithfully describes the homage paid in England to wealth-with which quotation we must dismiss him— "There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America, there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if, after all, it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls; if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes, and coach, and horses? How can a man be a gentleman without a pipe of wine? Haydon says, 'there is a fierce resolution to make every man live according to the means he possesses.' There is a mixture of religion in it. They are under the Jewish law, and read with sonorous emphasis that their days shall be long in the land, they shall have sons and daughters, flocks and herds, wine and oil. In exact They do not wish to be represented exproportion, is the reproach of poverty. cept by opulent men. An Englishman who has lost his fortune, is said to have died of a broken heart. The last term of insult is, a beggar.' Nelson said, 'the want of fortune is a crime which I can never get over.' Sydney Smith said, 'poverty is infamous in England.' And one of their recent writers speaks, in reference to a private and scholastic life, of the grave moral deterioration which follows an empty exchequer.' You shall find this sentiment, if not so frankly put, yet deeply implied, in the novels and romances of the present century, and not only in these, but in biography, and in the votes of public assemblies, in the tone of the preaching, and in the table-talk." THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD, THE LION The extraordinary adventures of that mighty Nimrod, Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, in South Africa, as detailed by himself, have made us familiar with lionhunting as an amusement, but they fail to present such graphic pictures of leonine existence as Monsieur Gérard sets before us. The Frenchman's volume is not merely a narrative of shots out of a double-barrel-it is a delightful account of life and manners in Algeria, the arida nutrix leonum, interspersed with occasional bits of tropical landscape finely toned and faithfully drawn. The literary execution of the work betrays a hand as accustomed to the pen as to the fowlingpiece indeed, we are tempted to suspect that the inkstand and the powder-flask employed in these "Adventures" belonged to different individuals, and that while Gérard killed the lions, some Parisian friend of his chronicled their destruction. The translation of the work seems to have been exceedingly well done. A single extract from the record will give our readers an idea of its interest. It embodies a mournful and remarkable story "A large number of recent examples of Arabs who have been devoured in this manner, have come under my observation, but I will mention only the following, because it is known to all the natives of Constantine, and because the circumstances attending it were fearfully curi ous. "It occurred a few years previous to the occupation of this city by the French troops, that two brothers condemned to death, were confined in the city prison, awaiting their execution on the morrow. They were bandits of great renown for strength and courage; the Bey, fearing they might escape by their address and hardihood, gave orders that they should be ironed with entraves, that is, an iron ring which is bound around the right leg of one prisoner, with the left leg of another, in such a manner that the two legs are fastened close together, and then the iron band is welded. "This was done, and yet on the morrow, the executioner, on visiting their cell, found it empty, and no one knew how they escaped. The two brothers, as soon as they were free from the prison enclosure, made unavailing efforts to cut or pry off their cumbersome ornament, but finding it impossible, fled across the country, avoiding as much as possible the frequented paths. When daylight came they hid themselves in the rocks, and only resumed their flight with the evening, being lighted on their way by the faint rays of a crescent moon, and the bright hope of freedom. Thus they had already travelled a long distance, when, in the middle of the second night, they suddenly came upon a lion. "The two robbers commenced by throwing stones at him, and calling out as loud as they were able, in order to make him flee, but the animal crouched down before them and did not move. Seeing that the stones and menaces were of no avail, the frightened men commenced their prayers; but before they were finished, the lion sprang upon them, and throwing them to the ground, devoured the elder while still chained to the body of his younger brother. The living man, as he heard the lessening moans of his relative and the craunching of the lion at his hideous meal, had no trouble in counterfeiting death, but swooned where he fell. When the animal had eaten the body down to the shackle, finding a substance he could not masticate, he bit off the leg of the brother he was eating below the knee, leaving the lower part of the limb still confined in the iron link. Then, either from thirst or from being satisfied with what he had eaten, he left the living man, and walked down to a brook, a little distance off. 66 The poor devil, once alone, sprang to his feet, and dragging with him the mangled limb, crept into a crevice of a rock that he was fortunate enough to discover. "A few moments after, the insatiate beast arrived on his track, roaring with anger, and passed around and above the hole in which he had sought refuge, but being unable to reach his prey, he left for the woods with the first dawning of the day. "The trembling fugitive, a second time saved, crawled out of his hiding-place to renew his flight, when he was captured by some of the horsemen of the Bey, who had been following his traces, who, putting him on the crupper of the saddle, carried him back to Constantine, where he was again thrown into prison. The Bey, astonished at the tale his soldiers brought back to him, ordered the man in his presence to certify to the truth of the story, and the culprit was led out, still dragging after him the leg of his brother. Ahmed Bey was so moved by the strange spectacle and wild narrative, that, although bearing the reputation of a cruel ruler, he ordered the entrave broken and the prisoner to be set at liberty." THE ANGEL IN THE HOUSE. THE ESPOUSALS. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1856. [From A. Morris, 97 Main St. Four months ago, we had occasion to refer to the first part of Mr. Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House," styled "The Betrothal," in which a susceptible young poet contrived, in some three thousand lines of octo-syllabic verse, to engage the affections of a very charming English maiden. For once, the proverb had been falsified and the course of true love did run smoothly along the current of Mr. Patmore's song. The fault we hinted at in that production, obscurity, becomes very glaring in "The Espousals." It is with difficulty that we follow the author through any one of the divisions of the poem, and we are never perfectly satisfied that we have caught his meaning at last. Affectations of all kinds, inversions of style, vagueness which seems to have been studied, absurd titles to his chapters, which are called sometimes "Accompaniments," and again "Sentences," and yet again "Idyls"-put us out of all patience with "The Espousals" before we arrive at the middle of the story. Rather should we have said middle of the song, for Mr. Patmore, like Canning's Knife-grinder, has no story to tell. He celebrates his Honey-moon, and like a good husband is never weary of praising his wife, but his volume is entirely wanting in incident and conducts us to no catastrophe, unless an "addition to the family" mentioned in the epilogue, may be called such. Beautiful thoughts there are, scattered through the verses; and an undefinable music in certain portions, and tenderness which affect the sympathies-from which we derive the assurance that the author is a man of refinement and scholarship and, we may add, genius; but Mr. Patmore's poetry, apart from its conceits and its cloudiness of meaning, is not the poetry which is demanded by the stirring, passionate age in which we live. His muse is at home in richly furnished drawingrooms, and delights in the sweet companionship of angelic young ladies whose existence glides serenely along in the routine of aristocratic country life perfumed with patchouly and gladdened by Ten Thousand a Year-she never walks with free foot on the mountain side or descends into the habitations of men where the battle of the world, with its fierce contentions and bitter trials, is daily a fighting, to whisper encouragement to the weak or consolation to the fallen. Not such is her mission. Mr. Patmore writes as if there were no such thing as trouble in this bright world of ours, and if by ignoring it, we could bring this happy condition of affairs about, then would he be the poet for the times. Pity that trouble and sorrow will exist, and enter into all the relations of life. But as such is the fact, that man cannot sing to the soul of mankind, cannot satisfy the poetic longings of the multitude, who narrows his walk to the paths of the "best society," even though prettinesses spring up around him like primroses, and his music rival the carolling of the birds upon the lawn. 'IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND.' mance," which is also given on the first page, is designed, we suppose, to prepare the reader for the somewhat serious and melancholy character of the story, for instead of green fields and rural love, such as we had in "Clouds and Sunshine," we are entertained with the horrors of gaol cruelty as practised in England, and with the struggles of Australian gold digging, there being few pleasant scenes by way of relief to the general gloom of the volumes. Like Mr. Reade's former stories, "It is Never too Late, &c." is full of striking effects, and is constantly reminding us of the footlights in its eminently dramatic form. Mr. Reade has written so much for the stage, where a tableau and a sensation are demanded every five or ten minutes, that he seems not to have recognised the secret of all the great masters of fiction in laying hold of the sympathies of the reader, not in exciting their sur prise by sudden contrivances. But in Susan Merton, we think he has succeeded beyond all his former efforts, in placing before us a character that belongs to real life, and not to the side-slips, and to her, as she appears in the rustic experiences of the earlier chapters, the reader reverts after he has "supped full of horrors" in the prison and the placer. We cannot sanetion the absurd tricks of typography and ridiculous brevity of chapters to which Mr. Reade has resorted to produce effect, in these volumes. Such devices are not original, and no more conduce to the impressiveness of a story than the red fire of the theatre improves the text of a drama in the representation of which it is employed. WIDDIFIELD'S NEW COOK BOOK; or Prac tical Receipts for the Housewife,. &c., &c. By IANNAH WIDDIFIELD. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 102 Chesnut Street. [From A. Morris, 97 Main St. If the proof of a pudding be in the eating, so the test of a cook book ought to be in the trial of some of its recipes. A competent authority, judging the vol ume in this practical manner, assures us it is a valuable work of its kind and that A no lady's kitchen can be complete without it. The venerable author, according to the title-page, which from its great length we have not quoted in full, has had half a century's experience as a cake and pastry baker in Philadelphia, and though she does not assume like Soyer to develop the philosophy of cookery, we have no doubt that her maxims are fully as sound and lead to quite as gratifying results. Matter of Fact Romance. By CHARLES READE. Author of "Christie Johnstone," &c. In Two Volumes. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1856. [From James Woodhouse, 137 Main Street. Mr. Reade makes his appearance again before the public in a couple of handsome volumes, under a long and aphorisistic title. The "Matter of Fact Ro |