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expeditions across the Atlantic, and give unprecedented mobility to operations along our coasts; but they will make it possible, on account of their slight draft, for an enemy to use various channels, which were before closed by their shoalness. This fact will necessitate the erection of forts at certain points, which otherwise might safely have been neglected. Moreover, the great rapidity with which an expeditionary force can be dispatched by steamers, entails an additional obligation to have our coast defenses always in perfect readiness, in peace as in war.

The value of submarine explosive agencies, in harbor defense, may prove quite considerable. The ideas of David Bushnell and Robert Fulton would again be revived, and probably realized, should we be involved in a naval war. While

such devices could not, alone, be relied on, as defenses, they would make an enemy very chary of trusting himself within reach of subinarine foes, and hence the more expeditious and imperative during bombardments. Ingenuity will, doubtless, in case of need, find ample means of annoying and harassing an enemy in our waters; but, as serious and sole defenses, all such temporary devices are utterly at fault, and to the last degree precarious.

Our forts are to derive their efficiency from garrisons, composed, in great part, of those whose homes are to be defended. It is a most valuable feature of our system, that the material of defense can so readily be brought into action, by men not trained to military service. The manual of heavy guns can be quickly

learned by intelligent men, who, under cover of walls and parapets, can be relied on to serve them well in action, without the long shoulder-to-shoulder training demanded to insure steadiness in field evolutions. A well-armed fort, served by the spirited and quick-witted population of one of our New England towns, would give such formidable battle as no fleet could long withstand. A nucleus garrison, thoroughly trained in defensive service, would give a right direction to the entire local force.

Finally, the defense of the country is among our highest obligations, not only when war is actually resounding along our coasts, but now and always, by preparation, not less than by participation. Though in no wise alarmists, we would earnestly urge the performance of this duty. We have advocated what we sincerely believe to be our true system of defensea system which has not yet, altogether, cost the amount required for a single year's support of the British navy. It is a system which can, in a few years, be completed, and which, once finished, will, for a slight expense of repairs and keeping, be always ready for emergencies. The commerce, whence our national revenue is almost entirely derived, is preeminently the interest served by our defenses, and may, with special justice, demand this protection. If we forecast the future of this commerce, and of all our national destiny, every vision of promised magnificence warns us to look well to those bulwarks of defense under cover of which we may safely ride out every storm of war.

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THERE is a great deal of talent displayed, we think, by the writers of our modern novels-imagination, discernment, and dramatic skill-and yet it is a talent quite undisciplined, and devoid of true principles of art. We have often been struck, in reading some of the trashiest even of our American romances, with a certain vigorous imagination which they discover, but which is utterly untrained by judgment. You will find in them passages of brilliant description, single scenes of remarkable dramatic effect, glimpses of original and well-sustained character; while, as a whole, they will be quite contemptible. The contrast, or defect, arises out of the infantile condition of our literature, which is buoyant and full of promise, but for the most part immature. Our writers have not yet learned to trust to their own better inspirations, but are imitative, and consequently led away, from truth and nature. into a kind of mongrel product, which is not wholly their own, nor yet that of anybody else. Of course, there are many exceptions, and we speak of the young and unknown class of writers.

But there are signs of improvement every day. The leading novels of the month are: Edith, or the Quaker's Daughter; Lanmere, by MRS. DORR, Wolfsden, Home, The New Purchase, Dreams and Realities of a Pastor and Teacher, and they are considerably better than the Newsboy, and Watchman class, of which we have formerly spoken. Edith is, indeed, a work of a great deal of power; and, but for a melodramatic tendency at the close, where a romantic Indian girl, and a female devil, called Henriette, are introduced, would be beautiful. The story relates to those days of our early New England history, when the Pilgrims conceived it necessary to purify their Zion of the sect of Quakers, and its principal personages are a sweet Quaker maiden, her father, a lively but somewhat thoughtless friend, a hypocritical priest, and a noble English family. These are mostly drawn with vigor and discrimination, the young Quakeress in particular, and the young English doctor, while the scenes in which the Quaker father appears are full of ener

NOTES,

AND REPRINTS.

gy and stern truthfulness. The peculiarly selfish character of Henriette is well conceived, and well executed at the outset, but is exaggerated at the close, and made the means of introducing unpleasant incidents, which mar the general beauty of the other parts. Nor does the improbable Indian woman add to the interest of the tale. Had the writer been less ambitious of effects, and studied simplicity more, she would have made her story a fine historical idyl, out of the material furnished by the period and characters she has chosen to illustrate. The theme is a suggestive one, and would repay another and more careful treatment.

Mrs. Dorr's Lanmere is a pleasant narrative, told with considerable grace and ease, and discovers, in the principal character that of the pretty Bessie-a good insight into the workings of the female mind. It cannot be said to exhibit much originality, either in the structure of the plot, or in the invention of persons, but is, on the whole, quite free from offenses of any kind. It will be objected to her men-who are nearly all marvelously fine fellows, indeed, saints in their way-that they are not sufficiently discriminated, being made too much on the same pattern, and that not taken from everyday life, but from the writer's ideal abstracts. We have ourselves a good opinion of human nature, and have met not a few good people, in the course of our sojourn on earth, but we have never happened to stray into any small village where there were so many special types of goodness, both male and female. A downright rascal or two, among the lot, would somewhat relieve the monotony of the life at Lanmere, or, if not a rascal, some fellow, at any rate, with a very decided human nature in him. It would do both the men and women good to be stirred up by a stalwart specimen of humanity, not afraid to be slightly wicked at times, or to disturb the summer weather with an occasional growl of thunder, or a flash of lightning.

Wolfsden is a tale of New England domestic life, faithful to local scenery and manners in many respects, and not without merit as a fable. It has little of that maudlin sentimentality in it, which is the bane

of our novels, while it maintains a high moral tone. It may be read with pleasure and profit.

Home is rather a series of domestic sketches, relating mostly to the wilderness life of early days, in the north of New England, than a continued narrative. There is, however, a thread of plot running through it, to give unity to the incidents, which are true, we have no doubt, though somewhat desultory. We have not found ourselves intensely absorbed in these pages.

The New Purchase is a republication of an earlier work, giving most graphic and laughable descriptions of pioneer life at the West, and abounding in fun. But the author throughout makes the common mistake, of confounding mere vulgarity and coarseness with wit, and calls upon us to laugh often, when we are only repulsed. He tries to be smart, too, when the occasion furnishes no food for smartness, and thus frequently fails of his aim. But he has a real perception of humor, which enables him to redeem these faults, by descriptions of scenes and persons irresistibly ludicrous.

We ought, perhaps, here to refer to the Early Greek Romances, republished in a volume of Bohn's Classical Library. It contains the famous Ethiopics of Heliodorus, the Daphnis and Chloe of Longus, and the Clitophe and Leucippe of Achilles Tatius. These are specimens of romance, written before the word romance had an existence, and give us an admirable opportunity of contrasting, not the manners and customs of early Europe with those of existing Europe, but the fictions which pleased the people then, with those which are popular now. In morality and refinement, the advantage is entirely on the side of the moderns, as well as in narrative skill and fertility of invention. These older romances have exerted a powerful influence over Italian and French literature, as any one will see who reads them.

Napoleon's Confidential Letters.-The private correspondence of Napoleon with his brother Joseph, translated from the French, is a work of greater value to the historian, than of interest to the general reader. It is rather what the French call a memoire pour servir, or a contribution to history, than history itself. There are so many characters in the correspondence, that it possesses no continuous interest, and

only those already familiar with the life of Napoleon, will find it of much profit. Yet these letters furnish many striking illustrations of the character of the great captain. A person who should read them, without having previously formed an opinion of him, would come to some such conclusion as this: that at the outset of his career in Paris, he was a mere adventurer, waiting upon fortune, ready for any promotion that might turn up, and somewhat desperate as to the means. He would find in his letters these expressions: "Life is a flimsy dream, soon to be over." "As for me, little attached to life, contemplating it without much solicitude, constantly in a state of mind in which one is on the day before a battle, feeling that while death is amongst us to put an end to all, anxiety is folly; everything joins to make me defy fortune and fate." "If I stay here, it is possible that I may be fool enough to marry." "One must live in the present; a brave man despises the future." All which are the restless promptings of a mind which has not yet found the proper sphere for its activity. Afterwards, when he had achieved many and great successes in Italy, he writes: "I am tired of human nature. I want solitude and isolation. Greatness fatigues me; feeling is dried. At twenty-nine, glory has become flat. I have exhausted everything. I have no refuge, but pure selfishness." Some suspicions of his wife aided in producing depression. All the while, however, he was sedulously pushing the fortunes of himself and his family, trying to buy up old estates in depreciated assignats, to get appointments for his brothers and friends, and to marry his sister to some rich man. An honorable gentleman having proposed for the hand of the latter, Napoleon says: "No! it must not be; he is not rich!" When he becomes the leader of the French armies, his tone changes into that of the dictation of a tyrant, exacting the most servile obedience from those he employs, and lying himself without scruple to deceive his enemies and the public, while he enforces the most rigid truth on others. But his activity is miraculous. The rapidity and reach of his combinations, the clearness and sagacity of his views, his command of the minutest details of administration, and his power of meeting sudden emergencies, show him to have been the greatest man of affairs that the world ever

saw. There is no grandeur in his ambition, which was mainly confined to personal glory and the glory of his family; but it was so intense and incessant in its action, that it stimulated his intellect to prodigious displays of strength. Having succeeded in raising himself to the mastery of France, and in placing crowns on the heads of his brothers and sisters, he tries to mingle the glory of France with his personal glory, but he never gets out of himself completely. That old selfishness which he said was his only refuge, ever returns. When, at last, these personal motives are withdrawn from him, as they were during his imprisonment at St. Helena, his mind loses its force, his conversation becomes weak and petulant, and even his body decays. Much admiration has been expressed by French writers of the talk of Napoleon while he was at St. Helena, but we confess, that it seems to us, that its sagacity and importance have been greatly exaggerated. These letters, written from the midnight bivouac, or on the field, are much better evidences of the wonderful grasp and quickness of his intellect.

Let us add, that this work has been well translated, and that the notes and introductions to the several chapters are highly intelligent.

-A reprint of the Life of Jeffrey, by LORD COCKBURN, was a compliment that the work itself did not deserve, it is so unskillfully executed, and yet it is the only record we have of the famous critic. It was a fine subject for biography, not on account of Jeffrey himself-who was much overrated-but on account of his relationships, and the times in which he lived. A literary man, of ordinary calibre, might have made a most entertaining work of it; but the Scotch judge, who undertook it, has made a dull one. Jeffrey's letters, which it contains, are the only relief, and those are not among the best specimens of epistolatory style.

What Jeffrey was as a lawyer and a justice, we are unable to say; but, it seems to us, that he was not so great a critic as he was reputed to be. Lord Cockburn calls him "the greatest of the British critics," which is making the others very small. But that is an exaggeration. Compared with Hazlitt, Lamb, Coleridge, Wilson, De Quincey, Macaulay, Carlyle, etc., he was far from being the greatest. He had a

ready and active intellect, earnest purposes, considerable reading, and a fluent, at times, brilliant rhetoric; but his judgments of men and books are, for the most part, excessively shallow. Indeed, we do not recall a single instance in which he has exhibited any discernment or originality in detecting the genius of his contemporaries; while there are hundreds of cases in which he was utterly mistaken. He perceived, we believe, the extraordinary merit of the Scotch novels; but when he came to speak of the magnificent poetry which was growing up about him, and which has made the nineteenth century an era in the literary history of mankind. he was as obtuse as an owl. He said some pretty and superficial things about it; but not a word that would show that he had an insight into the soul of the matter.

Jeffrey's most characteristic essay is his Dissertation on Beauty-full of wit, or, rather, of sparkling argumentation, and charming in style; but obviously the work of an adroit and accomplished advocate, rather than of a philosopher or thinker. The theory it expounds is really an absurd one; and yet it is set up with such an appearance of logic, and such a fine power of illustration, that the reader is forced to suppose it a thing of great account. His mind was acute, but not profound ; capable of making dazzling popular effects, but not of deep and lasting revolutions of thought. Of all his manifold contributions to the Edinburgh Review, what one has made any mark upon its age, or is recalled by posterity? It is not impossible, at the same time, to mention, among the works of other critics, some that will enjoy a perennial acceptance. Lamb's remarks, for instance, on the acting of Shakespeare's plays, Coleridge's notes on Shakespeare, Carlyle's Burns and Goethe, and even Macaulay's Clive and Lord Bacon, are a part of permanent literature; but we doubt whether Jeffrey's compositions, any of them, will live as long. His reputation will rest mainly upon the simple fact, that he was the editor of the Edinburgh Review, to whose taste and ability it was indebted for its early and wide celebrity.

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bave plenty of leisure, as well as opportunity, for forming judgments. They come into close contact with all the great people of the state; they get behind the scenes on public occasions; it is a part of their duty to enter into the festivities of the court, and their residence generally continues long enough to enable them to correct early impressions, and to comprehend the deeper as well as the more exterior movements of society. Yet how few good books have emanated from that source? Owing partly to the restraint which diplomats suppose they are bound to put upon themselves, and partly to the fact that they are chosen for their political, rather than their literary abilities.

The letters of this German attaché are scarcely an exception to the rule. They are lively and various, giving us many entertaining glimpses of Madrid and its people; but they are wholly on the surface, making no pretension to philosophic, or even political sagacity. They are just such letters as a well-bred and well-educated young man, with no particular objects in life, might write home to his family-chatty, good-natured, self-complacent, and full of lords and ladies. A great many details are of no interest to the public, while much is omitted which the public would like to see. In one respect, it differs from most English books on Spain, namely, that the author has a thorough faith in the honor and virtue of the people, and despises all the current scandal about the queen, and the nobility as well. He thinks that the degradation of Spain is to be ascribed to the selfish politicians, and that there is integrity enough in the nation to save it, if the rascals who alternately usurp the government, would only give it a chance.

The most interesting parts of the book (except for the ladies, who will find the details of the toilette more to their taste) are those which relate to the rise and progress of the late revolutions-of which we get capital outside views, with only, now and then, a look on the inside of affairs. All the while that the government and court are running the mad round of dissipation -dancing and feasting-the volcanic elements are at work among the under currents. Conspiracies come to a head--break out are suppressed-the leaders shot-and the dancing and feasting go on. A new ministry opens a new order of things, which

lasts for a few months, and then there is another explosion, followed by another ministry, which follows the fate of its predecessors. In his representation of these changes, the attaché, of course, takes the conservative side-if there be any conservative side in the midst of such incessant changes. He is, at any rate, no friend to the rebels-as he calls those who violently oppose the government-and scarcely does justice to the popular movement. Great crimes are always committed, in the midst of insurrectionary frenzies; but it should not be forgotten that four crimes, equally great, though, perhaps, less repulsive, have been their provocation. The luxury, the levity, the recklessness, and the corruption of the court will generally explain the discontent and ferocity of the canaille. The govern ing classes, as they are called, do not govern, but misgovern, led on by their own insane selfishness and love of power, in utter contempt of the government, and more solicitous about their pleasures than the popular welfare. In such circumstances, it is inevitable that the governed should make chronic attempts to take the reins in their own hands.

This book, if a translation, as it purports to be, is excellently well done--reading as freshly as a native English work.

-The Day Star.--A useful monograph has been prepared by Mr. G. L. DAVIS, of Baltimore, on the "toleration" allowed and practiced by the early colonists of Maryland. It is remarkable that the first and nearest approach to practical freedom of conscience, made in history, was accomplished by the Catholics and Protestants who settled together at St. Mary's, under the proprietary of Lord Baltimore. With a Protestant king to grant the charter, a Catholic baron to receive it, and a mingled population of several religions to be influenced by it, the government was more nearly impartial than any that had been before administered. We say, more nearly, because it was not universally tolerant. The provisions of the charter extended to Christians alone, and did not include Jews, deists, atheists, and even some professedly Christian sects-such as Unitarians and Quakers. Yet, in practice, these classes experienced no real persecution; and Mr. Davis clearly shows that the world is indebted for the example mainly to the Catholics, though some Protestants joined in it.

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