as the most splendid rhetoric of Ruskin. In the last volume, we note several exquisite felicities of phrase. We quote two or three:

"In approaching the delicate creation of chaste imagination which Mr. Powers gives us in his Greek slave, after the first shock of delight, from the gentle rush of her beauty, wave-like, upon the spirit, is past, we are arrested and enchained by the profound and lofty interest of her countenance."

It would be impossible to convey more perfectly, in words, the peculiar completeness of quiet but intense pleasure occasioned by the first sight of a graceful sculpture. It is a criticism in itself. He describes Undine as follows:

"A child, to captivate the fancy; a woman, to move the heart: a spirit, to raise and awe the soul; with enchanting elegance she wears the drapery of a triple grace."

Of Moore, he says:

"He further corrupted it (his genius) by indulging his youthful appetency upon the luscious banquets of those amatory poets, sophists, and letter-writers, who were engendered of the soft decay of Greek civility, and whom the scholar fears even to touch with a momentary attention."

But our note is expanding into a review. We commend this volume as the work of a man whose death was a national loss. There has been no posthumous publication in our literature, indicative of so much power, since the extracts from a "Scholar's Journal," the diary of Charles Chauncey Emerson, a brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson, published, many years since, in the "Dial." It was he who said, of Shakespeare, that "he sits, pensive and alone, above the hundred-handed play of his imagination."

-The name of the Rev. Dr. GILMAN, of Charleston, is so well known in the literary world as to have received the compliment of a mendacious mention at the Publishers' Festival in this city, when the papers amiably assumed that everybody who ought to have been there was actually present.

And there are many persons, in all parts of our country, who will be glad to know that this estimable and accomplished divine has collected and published the most valuable productions of his pen, under the title of Contributions to Literature.

Cambridge honors, as a scholar and a poet, the man whom Carolina values as a preacher; and, in this goodly volume now

before us, the reader, curious in the literary history of his country, will recognize the style and temper of the generation which gave to Boston its long-admitted preeminence in the walks of style and scholarship, on this side the Atlantic. Yet Dr. Gilman is more than the type of a generation; he has original qualities of mind, as graceful as they are peculiar; his humor is fine and quaint; his feeling re'fined and gentle; he shows, not seldom, a curious felicity in expression, and a kind of reasonable oddity in speculation, altogether his own, and altogether indescribable. Two papers in this collection, the "Memoirs of a New England Village Choir," and "Some account of the Reverend Stephen Peabody," embody, more amusing and interesting details of the rural life of New England, fifty years since, than are to be elsewhere found, and are quite equal, in manner as well as in matter, to Mr. Irving's portraitures of the ancestral New Yorker.

Dr. Gilman's muse is a well-bred lady, who only comes when she is bid; but his occasional pieces are among the happiest of their kind. Two of them, indeed, the "Union Ode," sung at Charleston, in the dreadful "Nullification Days," and the College hymn of "Fair Harvard,” sung at the Cambridge Centennial, have achieved a local popularity which promises to be permanent.

At Home and Abroad.-The second volume of MARGARET FULLER'S works contains her tour in the West, and the letters written from Europe, during her connection with the Tribune, with some notices of her death, and the poems which that event suggested. Sadder, to us, than her untimely fate, is the broken and fragmentary way in which she has always been brought before the public. Nothing, that remains of her, is complete. Her biography was written by three persons, instead of one, and gave no connected view of her activity. Her larger works are without unity, and her lesser ones are all more or less imperfect. The letters from the West, and these letters from abroad, are desultory -full of hints and suggestions-but with no thought worked out, and no pervading purpose. Her mind, indeed, even up to the hour of her death, was unsettled and growing, and had not attained that serenity of conviction, which springs from definite

views, or clear insight. Many noble impulses lived in it, many grand thoughts rolled up before its vision; but the assurance of satisfying truth it had not reached. In her earlier years, the intellect reigned supreme over the affections-and in that state no man or woman ever attains peace; but it is beautiful to note, as she became absorbed in the struggle of Italy, and the ties of wifehood and maternity. gave her objects of love, how the womanly nature emerged, and her whole being was softened, concentrated, and raised. There is a touching and mournful eloquence in the enthusiasm with which she describes the first movements of the new life in Italy, followed, as it was, by such treacherous overthrow. Sympathizing sincerely in the hopes of the patriots, admitted to their councils, sharing their dangers, admiring their leader-that singularly pure and gentle, yet strong spirit, Mazzini-her letters on the progress of the Italian revolution are the best contemporary records that we have of it, and excite a profound regret that her more elaborate work on Italy cannot be recovered. Yet, it is to be doubted, whether the history, if completed, would have possessed certain charms, which we find in these letters, written amid the stir of the battle, in the gloom or glow of the moment, with the fresh feeling of the writer pervading every word. One follows the progress of the narrative, as he turns the leaves of some deep tragedy, too much absorbed in the story of grand and melancholy events to be able to criticize the art with which they are unfolded. But this fact is itself the highest praise that could be bestowed upon the writer.

The volume is carefully edited, and neatly printed, and will be gratefully received by all the admirers of this remarkable

woman.

-Liberty and Slavery.-Professor BLEDSOE, of the University of Virginia, has published an argument, under this name, designed to show that the subjugation of one race of men by another is the very essence of human liberty, sanctioned explicitly by the moral law of the Bible, and amply sustained by the inductions of experience. Strange as it may seem, it is still a fact, that the interests involved in a particular culture, and the prejudices which it engenders, are able to mislead minds of some degree of original force, and of learning,

into such a systematic perversion of all the dictates of nature, good sense, and religion. All the world knows that slavery exists in this country, simply, because it is supposed to be the most efficient means of cultivating cotton, and that if, by the sudden disuse of that plant, or by the extensive raising of it elsewhere, the trade in it here should become unprofitable, slavery would be abandoned. Yet, inasmuch as the system has been violently attacked on moral grounds, it has been thought expedient to defend it on moral grounds; and we see accomplished professors devoting long and careful treatises to the overthrow of the accepted doctrines of politics and morals, and to the establishment of principles more compatible with this system. It is a sorry exemplification of the facility with which the mind will often persuade itself that what it wants to be right is right. Professor Bledsoe writes with earnestness, and, now and then, eloquently; but his logic is very much out at the heels.

-LIST'S National System of Political Economy. This volume is translated from the German of a very un-German authority. He was a practical man, who passed many years in this country, connected with important commercial enterprises, and his system is the result of his experiences, rather than of study. It differs from the ordinary English and French systems, in that it recommends a temporary adherence to the protective policy, in order to build up national welfare. Nations, as actually organized, and not an abstract humanity, is the true object of political-economical inquiry. The first part, which furnishes a kind of condensed history of the industrial progress of the nations, is very instructive, and some of the subsequent chapters no less so; but, as a whole, it is rather a dull work. It is called a system; but is, in reality, nothing better than a scheme, somewhat imperfectly worked out, and by no means systematically exhibited. The truth is, that political economy, as a science, is in such an inchoate state, that no system is yet possible, and all that is written about it is merely contributions pour servir. The volume before us is a proof of this; for the author of it often says one thing, the French editor, whose notes are appended, another, and the American editor a third. It would seem as if no two men could agree upon any of the more important topics of

political economy-a fact which should not disparage inquiry in that direction, but should certainly prevent any one from appropriating to it the name of science. Apart from its higher pretensions, this work of Mr. List is valuable, as it contains very many important suggestions, and is marked by great good sense. Like Mr. Carey, the author believes that the principles of national economy are not things to be invented, nor to be deduced from certain a priori moral maxims; but that they are to be generalized from the actual facts of human experience.

-TRAVELS.-IDA PFEIFFER has given us a second journey round the world. It is, of course, interesting in itself, because it is a narrative of strange adventures, and a description of strange scenes. But the chief interest of the book lies in the fact, that it is Madame Pfeiffer's. She is such an extraordinary person, that one would wish to read her impressions of men and things, though they were written in a style much inferior to that in which they are written, and though her judgments were less sagacious and candid than they are. A woman who is capable, after having reared a family, and attained an age when the ambitions are subdued, and the energies slackened, of conceiving and executing journeys, which may well appal the stoutest man, is a phenomenon, and curiosity stands on the qui vive to know what she thinks, and to hear her tell of what she has seen. It is not once in many centuries that such a person springs up. Even a robustious, stalwart fellow of a man, who should take his satchel in his hand, and, without much money, few letters of introduction, no acquaintance, and against the wishes of his family, visit successively the savages of Borneo, the Chinese, the Polynesians, Iceland, Mexico, California, the Great West, and Canada, would be esteemed a considerable fellow, in his day. Bayard Taylor, with half that travel, is a famous man, the elect of lyceums, and the pride of booksellers; but when we see a woman do all this, we are lost in surprise. We are tempted to believe her an Amazon, at least-or one of those masculine creatures, who, with the form of a woman, have the spirit of monsters; but when we come to find that she is a frail, delicate, and gentle person, with every womanly sentiment and sensibility, our surprise grows into wonder and incredulity.

Madame Pfeiffer's present volume is scarcely so agreeable as that which recorded her sojourn in Iceland. It covers so much ground, that she is not able to dwell with sufficient particularity on the parts to render her descriptions adequate. Besides, we find such mistakes in what relates to our own country, as to beget the suspicion that other parts are equally uncertain. She is quite indignant, for instance, be cause the government of the United States does not do something to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, instancing the passage of the Maine Law, as a proof of its power to act in that direction! She characterizes the American women for want of culture, having seen only the women in and about St. Paul's, or a few other places in the extreme west. There are other such niaiseries, and still the book contains a great deal of instruction, and is admirable in spirit. Though Madame Pfeiffer has. herself, wandered so far from the domestic sphere of women, she seems to be a great stickler for it. We excuse her own course, on the ground that she bad previously discharged all her household duties.

-The Madeira of Mr. MARCH is a pretty thorough account of the life in that island, with some glimpses into Spanish life in general. It is, for the most part, amusing, and appears to be authentic. His opportunities for studying the character, both personal and social, of the inhabitants, the higher, as well as the lower, classes, could not have been better, and he has availed himself of them to the best of his abilities. His wit is not always of the purest Attic, and his phraseology, at times, smells of the newspaper, but he has a strong animal life in him, a relish for good things, an eye for the picturesque, and no little sense. These are all taking qualities in the traveler, and help to make an entertaining volume.

-Lieutenant BREWERTON'S account of Kansas is lively, running over with westernisms, and western adventures, and giving some droll narratives of frontier life, especially of riding and sleeping, which may warrant one in passing an hour or two over its pages, but otherwise it has no attractions, and very little value. We ought to except the documents relating to the present war in Kansas, which are appended, and which throw a great deal of light upon the existing controversy.

-Bohn's Libraries.-We have before spoken of the general excellence of the books included in the several series of Bohn's Libraries; but the incessant appearance of new additions calls for new remark. Among the most recent works of value which have been put forth, is--SMYTH's Lectures on the French Revolution, which is not a bistory, so much as an indispensable guide to history. As in his Lectures on Modern History, the author does not furnish us with a detailed narrative of events, but a general outline, filled in with judicious criticisms, and indicating the best authorities to be consulted on different points. Smyth is somewhat of a conservative in his opinions, and not a remarkably vivacious writer, but he is a man of good judgment and the most various learning.--Another volume, is an expurgated edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, by LEIGH HUNT, or, rather, a collection of all the fine and brilliant things which occur in Beaumont and Fletcher, arranged under their appropriate heads, and without the offensive accompaniments of the complete editions. A pleasant introduction to the whole is given by the editor-an essay on the characteristics and beauties of those old playwrights, in his most genial vein. A third incorporation into the library is a sixth volume of the sterling old DANIEL DEFOE's Works, which we trust will be continued till it shall have embraced all the writings of that true and noble Briton. It is curious that no complete edition of the writings of the author of Robinson Crusoe, and of the Plague in London, should now be in print.--The Memoirs of Philip de Comines is also to be found here.

-MOTLEY'S Dutch Republic.-We take pleasure in welcoming to the list of American historians the author of a new and claborate history of the Rise of the Dutch Republic. It is a real acquisition to our literature. Beginning with the earliest outbreaks of dissatisfaction in the Netherlands, with the government of Philip the Second, it carries the narrative outward to the death of the Prince of Orange; and, while it covers, substantially, the same ground as Mr. Prescott's recent life of that monarch, it is more full and detailed. The troubles in the Netherlands are rather an episode in the work of Mr. Prescott, and are, therefore, not treated with that com

pleteness of which the subject admitted. But, with Mr. Motley, they are the main topic, and he has devoted to them the most careful research, patient study, sound sense, and a true sympathy. As we propose reviewing his work at length, in a succeeding number of the Magazine, we do not dwell upon it in this place, further than to say that it is a most elaborate enterprise, undertaken with great boldness, and executed with no less skill. Mr. Motley has availed himself of all the information to be found in the Belgian, Dutch, French, and Spanish archives, and, in spite of a little too much ambition in the style, has constructed out of them a most eloquent and absorbing narrative. A more significant selection of a period, for us Americans, could not have been made. It is handled, too, from a proper American stand-point, and we earnestly commend the work to all lovers of history. It is destined, we think, as a first impression, to become a standard in its department.

-The Messrs. HARPER have given us two more volumes of their Classical Library. Mr. Dale has translated Thucydides very carefully, very literally, very faithfully, but not very elegantly. Yet, as he has steadily followed the capital text of Arnold's edition, his version is to be preferred to any other that we have. The notes, however, are too exclusively philological to be of much use to the general reader, and hardly numerous enough to give the scholar any material help.

The few notes appended by Mr. Cary to his translation of Herodotus, are rather illustrative than critical, and the version itself is more readable than Mr. Dale's Thucydides. It is a much more faithful translation of the Greek text than Beloe's very pleasant and popular volumes; and as Mr. Taylor's admirable version (upon which Mr. Cary makes what we think an unfounded criticism) has never been printed in a very accessible form, this new work will probably meet the demands of the public more fully than its predecessors have done. There is really no reason why Herodotus should not be a favorite with modern readers. He unites with a quite Homeric candor and freshness of feeling certain qualities of style nearly akin to those most popular in our own day, and which no ancient writer, except Josephus, seems to us to possess in an equal degree.