outset, - and its ambitious schemes of universal dominion exposed. Next, the distribution of Europe made under the Holy Alliance is discussed, and the successive attempts of the Poles, Hungarians and French to achieve national freedom, narrated. Finally, the policy which the American government ought to pursue in reference to European struggles, is treated at length. The author's ideas, though not identical with Kossuth's, have been evidently inspired by him, though it is a part of his argument that the foreign policy of the United States has always looked to a wise intervention in European affairs. He writes intelligently, and sometimes with eloquence, but his suggestions would have produced more effect if they had been written in a more quiet and subdued style. As to the questions raised in this book, they are too important to be dismissed in a hasty paragraph; and we therefore hope to be able to make them the subject, sooner or later, of an elaborate article. In a late number of the London Athenæum we find forty-nine American books advertised, one extensively reviewed, and four favorably "noticed." It is also said, by an English authority, that a far greater number of volumes of American literature have been sold in England during the year 1852, than of English literature in America. In 1834, the publications of English and American works here bore the relation: 198 English to 260 American. In 1852, the relation stood as follows: English, 247, American, 690. Thus the American originals have nearly trebled, while the reprints remain very much the same in number as they were 19 years since. -A beautiful cabinet edition, revised, of the Diary of SAMUEL PEPYS, will speedily be issued, in 4 Vols. small 8vo. And is to appear simultaneously in London and New-York. in -M. CHASLE'S "Notabilities France and England," is also speedily to be published here in an English dress. -A New Universal Gazetteer, containing much valuable new information, including the recent census of the United States, also those of Great Britain and France, &c., by T. C. CALLICOTT, A. M., one of the editors of the Commercial Advertiser, is a much needed work, which has been long in preparation, and is now advertised for next month. -The "Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of Industry of all Nations in New-York," is to be got out somewhat on the plan and style of the London Illustrated Catalogue. G. P. Putnam & Co. are appointed by the Asso ciation, the publishers. They will also issue the official Illustrated Weekly Record, to be printed at the Crystal Palace. 66 ENGLISH.-The London Times has a crushing" review of THACKERAY'S "Esmond," probably provoked by the Preface to the Kickleburys on the Rhine," in which the critic of that learned journal, if we remember rightly, came off second best. It professes to be a fair critique, and speaks patronizingly of the author's talents, but the malicious purpose is illconcealed. The writer complains that Mr. THACKERAY is an utter unbeliever in human virtue, that his good people are all stupid, and his wicked people very amusing, while he makes the most atrocious and exceptional characters the "abiding rule" of life. He next condemns the attempt to imitate the style of the Reign of Queen Anne, because, admitting the cleverness of it, the author has been betrayed by it into numerous discrepancies and anomalies. He says: "That Steele should be described as a private in the Guards in the year 1690, when he was only 15 years old and a school-boy at the Charter-house, is, perhaps, no great offence in a work of fiction; but a fatal smile involuntarily crosses the reader's cheek, when he learns, in an early part of the story, that a nobleman is 'made to play at ball and billiards by sharpers, who take his money;' and is informed some time afterwards that the same lord has gotten a new game from London, a French game, called a billiard.' It is not surprising that for a moment Mr. Thackeray should forget that he is Mr. Esmond, and speak of rapid new coaches' that performed the journey between London and the University in a single day,' when he means to say 'perform;' neither is it astonishing that the writer of 1852 should announce it as a memorable fact, that in the days of Queen Anne young fellows would 'make at their taverns and call toasts,' merry although it is quite out of place for the writer of 1742 to marvel at the same custom, seeing that Colonel Esmond must have known the fashion to be in vogue in the times of George the Second. A less pardonable oversight certainly occurs in the second volume, when (at page 40) the reign of William III. and that of Queen Anne seem unaccountably jumbled together in the same paragraph; but were such faults as we have indicated to present themselves with tenfold frequency, it would be idle and unfair to insist upon imperfections inseparable from such an effort as that to which Mr. Thackeray has doomed himself, for no better reason that we can discern than that of demonstrating how much more amusing, lively, and companionable he is in his own easy attire than when tricked out with the wig, buckles, and other accou- In closing this criticism, the writer ac- -LAYARD'S long-expected work, comprising the account of his new explorations at Babylon and further discoveries at Nineveh, is to be issued simultaneously, about the first of March, by Murray of London, and Putnam & Co. of New-York. The work will be fully illustrated, and uniform with his former work. —An additional volume on the "Life and Letters of Niebuhr," has been edited by SUSANNAH WIRKWORTH, in continuation of Chevalier BUNSEN's memoir. It renders the former work more complete, and supplies many interesting letters, which were omitted by the former editor. We do not see, however, that it gives us any higher opinion of the character of the great historian. -The gentleman who is to replace Mr. EMPSON, lately deceased, in the editorship of the Edinburgh Review, is Mr. GEORGE CORNWALL LEWIS, - favorably known as an author. He is distinguished, says the Atheneum, for his knowledge of political enonomy, and though not himself a contributor to the higher classes of literature, is said to appreciate literature in all its branches with a hearty and discriminating relish. -The speeches in Parliament of the late Duke of Wellington, are about to be collected and published uniformly with the far-famed Wellington Dispatches. The collection was commenced by the late Colonel GURWOOD,-continued by the Colonel's widow,-and corrected in many places by the Duke himself. -The Westminster Review for January, has an article on "Slavery in the United States," also an elaborate essay on the late "Daniel Webster." and a history of the "Mormons "-three American subjects, out of the eight which it contains. This periodical, under Mr. CHAPMAN'S management, is rapidly improving in character and circulation. -The "Children of Light, by CAROLINE CHESTER," is advertised in the English prints, also the "Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, by C. EDWARDS LEICESTER." What's in a name? -Who does not remember the eloquent "Stones of Venice," by JOHN RUSKIN, and who that remembers, will not be glad to hear, that a second part of that work VOL. I.-16 is completed, and will soon be put to press? That portion of the earth, which, a short time since, was the sink of British felony, has becoine a chief subject of interest in England; and Australia has now more books written about it, than any other division of the globe. The latest of these publications is called "The Three Colonies of Australia," and was written by SAMUEL SIDNEY. It is historical, descriptive and practical, and gives us as much information about the new El Dorado as any one would care to get. On the whole, it is one of the most reliable works called forth by the gold discoverers. - Egypt is a sort of patrimony of the St. Johns. In our last number we referred to the "Village Life in Egypt," of Bayle St. John, and now we have " an Egyptian Pilgrimage," by JOHN Isis, AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN, the father of the former. This time, however, we have not a book of travels, but a series of stories, designed to illustrate the "inner life" of Egypt. Fable and philosophy are judiciously mingled with pleasant personal incidents. Eyre" is announced,-a novel of course,— - A new work by the author of " Jane but whether of the Jane Eyre, or the Wildfel Hall School, is not told. How many readers who were thrilled by that thrilling series of romances put forth by the "Bells," will look forward with eagerness to this forthcoming volume. A new "Uncle Tom's Cabin," could not produce more sensation in the literary world. - A new novel, too, by the writer of Mary Barton," one of those exciting fictions which depict the struggles and sorrows of the poorer classes of England, is in press. -Mrs. MOODIE's forthcoming work is entitled, "Mark Hundlestone." It will be published in a few days. FRANCE. Our notes on French and German literature are necessarily brief, the delays of the Havre and Bremen steamers, having left us without the usual supply of new publications from the two countries. A new Edition of CALVIN'S Commentaries on the New Testament, is about to appear in France, under the care of competent editors. The first volume will be published at an early day, and will be followed by the others at intervals of six months. Four volumes will complete the work; the subscription price is 25 francs, or $5. Of all the works of the great reformer, this is perhaps the most generally useful at the present day. His exegesis of the Sacred Books is impartial, and not mocked by the polemic glow which so much animates his dogmatic writings, and which is here replaced by an ardent and profoundly devout religious feeling. It may be studied with interest and instruction, by Christians whose doctrinal views differ from those of Calvin; which cannot be said of all of his books, transcendent as is the intellect, and trenchant as is the merciless logic that pervades them. A Under the title of Théâtre de St. de Balzac (Dramatic works of St. de Balzac), a handsome volume containing the four plays of Vautrin, Les Ressources de Quinola, Pamela-Giraud, and La Marâtre, has just made its appearance at Paris. In these dramas may be found all the genius and all the perversity of Balzac ; and we know no better book for those who desire to read him for themselves, and do not wish to go into the rest of his works. Beyond doubt the most considerable figure in French literature for the last thirty years, he does not seem to us destined to outlive the epoch of feverish, and opium-eating passion, from which and for which he wrote. A lurid atmosphere overhangs all his creations. The moral-impossible is his delight. monster of vice, who amid all the orgies of crime, still retains the idea and the secret worship of virtue, is the most frequent character among his heroes. Thus Vautrin is a man who has violated every law, an escaped galley-slave, the chief of a band of robbers, making no bones of murder or any other crime; at the same time from mere love of goodness, he brings up in virginal purity a boy, whom he finds barefoot on the high road, and who turns out to be the son of a Duke carried off in infancy. The drama winds up with the arrest of Vautrin, to be carried back to the galleys, and the restoration of the young man, adorned with every accomplishment and unsullied as an angel, to the arms of his parents, whom his recovery reconciles to each other, after a long and envenomed hostility. But this is only a feeble specimen of the nightmares with which that fertile brain has endowed the literature of his country. We do not deny a single merit which the admirers of so rare a man can attribute to him. We know the wondrous skill with which he analyzes the fibres of the human heart. We know the daguerreotypic fidelity with which he paints the traits of human character. We know the profound wisdom with which this Mephistopheles can discuss the problems of practical life. We know, above all, the matchless charms of his vigorous and original diction, in which every word is a thought. But after all, we find more in him to pity than to like; he is a victim to the social depravity of Paris, and not a great poet. His creations make you shiver and sicken with their gloom, and their unnatural, sickish intensity. He belongs to the night; he is inhuman, and unwholesome. Better one touch of honest, sunny nature, one tear that drops, straight and pure from the genuine heart, than all this affluent flow of genius so sadly poisoned at its spring. But Balzac is not alone; the same sentence falls more or less seriously on the disgusting and vampyre literature of nearly all his epoch. -A few months since Blackwood called the attention of English and American readers to M. EMILE SOUVESTRE, as the founder of a new school of romance in French literature. We have just read a volume of his called Dans la Prairie (In the Meadow), with sincere pleasure. It consists of some half dozen simple tales, that are utterly free from the artistic and other faults for which French story writers have been remarkable. They remind us more of Miss Edgeworth than of any other author. A transparent plot, without mystery or clap-trap, a clear and beautiful style, genuine feeling, and hearty good sense are their characteristics. Without too much prominence the moral is always apparent at the end, and is none the less agreeable because it comes as the dew of sincere emotion is gathering in the eyes of the reader. -JOHN LEMOINNE is one of the leading editors of the Journal des Debats, and his name frequently appears in its stately columns at the end of articles upon questions of foreign or domestic policy, and quite as often it is the signature of the excellent literary dissertations which grace the Feuilleton. M. LEMOINNE has collected into a neat volume some score of reviews and sketches of character, published at various times within two years past. These Etudes Critiques et Biographiques are exceedingly pleasant and not uninstructive reading; not profound, yet at the same time free from the blunders of fact to which inferior French writers are so much addicted, especially in relating foreign topics. M. LEMOINNE exhibits a fine, catholic appreciation of what is excellent in English and German literature, and as a companion for an afternoon's ride by rail or steamboat, a more agreeable companion could not be desired. -A work which seems destined to mark an epoch in the science of the animal organization, is the Traité de Chimie Anatomique et Phisiologique (Treatise on Anatomical and Physiological Chemistry), of which the third and last volume has recently appeared at Paris. It is the fruit of profound and thorough study, set forth with the admirable clearness which is the glory of the French language and of French savans. It aims to show what are the primary and immediate principles that compose the mammalian body, both in their normal and their morbid state, and was written as preliminary to a treatise on General Anatomy which is to follow. The elements of the body are found to be of three classes, viz., crystallizable principles of mineral origin, which leave the organization, in part at least, just the same as they entered it; crystallizable principles, formed in the organization itself, and leaving it just as they were at their formation; and coagulable principles, which do not crystallize, formed in the organism by the help of materials for which the first class of principles serve as a vehicle, and decomposing where they are formed, whereby they are themselves the materials for the formation of principles of the second class. The first volume is occupied with general statements and discussions. The two last treat the "immediate principles" in detail. Each class is examined with reference to its general mathematical, physical, chemical and organic features, and then a special chapter is devoted to each gas, acid, salt, alkali, &c., which comes under that class. The work is one which no physiologist can do without, and the names of its authors, M. M. CHARLES ROLIN and F. VERDEIL, will be memorable in the history of physiological science. -A recent number of the Revue Archæologique gives an account of the discovery of no less a curiosity than an Egyptian novel of the time of Moses. Strange to say, the tale opens with an event that strongly recalls the history of Potiphar's wife. The writer makes the miraculous element play a large part in the progress of his plot, and affords many singular intimations, not only as to the domestic life of the Egyptians, of 1500 B. c. but also as to their religious motives. The manuscript appears to have originally belonged to the collection of the 19th dynasty, now preserved in the British Museum, published a few years since. -That Briareus of authors, Alexander Dumas, announces the speedy commencement of a novel, in eighteen volumes, whose story is to begin with the Christian era, and come down "through six civilizations" to the present day. He pretends that he has been engaged upon it above twenty years, during which time it has gradually matured in his mind, being constantly enriched by the new learning and the deeper knowledge of men that he has acquired. The name of the story is Isaac Loguedem, and the idea of it is palpably borrowed from Eugene Sue's History of a Proletarian Family, through centuries. Dumas is a great reprobate, and it is safe to say that the book will be entirely the composition of the days employed in writing it. GERMANY.-Nothing of very great moment seems to have appeared in Germany within the month. AUERBACH has published the third volume of his Schwazoräldler Dorfgeschichten. (Village Stories of the Black Forest). It contains two tales; the first is called the Life of Diethelm of Buchenburg, and narrates the criminal career and tragic termination of a wealthy peasant, who, in order to keep up the show of riches, becomes a swindler, an assassin, an incendiary. The interest is intense, and the reader who be gins is sure to finish. Auerbach is no less an artist in the darker passions than in the frolic and genial life of village festivals, the happy loves and simple blessings of German rustic life. Of the latter character is the second story of the volume, Brosi and Moni, which paints the innocent joys of honesty and virtue, animated and genialized, by the mutual affections of unsophisticated souls. -The literary remains of GUTZLAFF, the late eminent Chinese Missionary, are about to be published, under the editorial care of Prof. Newman of Munich, to whom they have been intrusted by the widow of the deceased. -Frederic the Great is one of the heroes and standing themes of German bookmaking; to whom, as to Goethe, it is always safe for a would-be author to resort. On the old soldier and his court, Herr MUHLBACH has published three mortal volumes, which those may peruse who are desirous of further instruction on those branches of human history. -Baron VON STERNBERG has had as many hard knocks from German critics as any other man not in the line of theological or medical polemics; and now his newly issued Carnival in Berlin has brought the magnates of that capital about his ears. We have always had a liking for the Baron's books, and for his dry and rather supercillious humor. Last year he let himself loose on Vienna, and now he stings the vanity of the Berliners with equal boldness. He tells them that the drama is run down to a low state of feebleness and folly; and that art in general is in a bad way. Kiss's Amazon, which was exhibited with such applause, at the London World's Fair, and is to be shown at that of New York, is unmercifully laughed at for its absurdities, which is always dire heresy in the eyes of good Berlin. In the course of the book, the Baron renounces some of his former political sins; hints a regret for some rather ultra-conservative things that he has written, and intimates that he shall hereafter be found fighting against the retrograde tendencies now dominant in his country. On the whole, we may pronounce this production superior to his last books, Der Mene Gilblas, and Ein Fashing in Wien. -The Deutsche Balladenbuch (German Ballad Book), published at Leipsic, is worthy the attention of the curious, in that fascinating sort of Literature. It contains old and modern ballads, those whose origin is lost in obscure antiquity, along with Goethe's King of Thule, or Uhland's Eberhard, the Greybeard. There are also translations from old English and Scotch ballads, which are done with remarkable spirit and fidelity. The illustrations (wood-cuts) are admirable, for sentiment and beauty of execution. Some of them are irrepressibly comic. The work is published in ten parts, of which two are already issued. -A translation of TICK NOR'S History of Spanish Literature has appeared at Leipsic, from the pen of Dr. N. H. Julius. The original has enjoyed the encomiums of the German critics, ever since its first publication in this country, and the version is praised by the same authorities, as in every way faithful and worthy. It is increased by additions and emendations, furnished by Mr. Ticknor to the translator, as well as by original notes and additions, derived from other more recent works on the subject, and by two supplementary essays, by Dr. F. Wolf-the one upon Romance Poetry, and the other on the Song-books of the Spaniards. In this form it is pronounced to contain the results of the latest investigations, and to be incomparably the best work on Spanish literary history. -SZEMERE, once the minister, and afterwards the assailant of Kossuth, has published, at Hamburg, a sketch of the character and acts of Görgey, the Hungarian general, in which he is represented as a taciturn, capricious, energetic, ambitious man; without principles, quick and vigorous in action, but without clear and distinct aims or policy, who intrigued for the sake of intriguing, and hated Austria without loving his own country. Some interesting public documents, of historic value, accompany the work. It will be of great use to the future historian of the Hungarian war of independence. -The Düsseldorfer Künstler Album (Dusseldorf Artists' Album), for 1853, puts to shame all the American and English annuals we have yet seen. The illustrations, some twenty-five in each number, are by such artists as the two Achenbachs, Camphausen, Geselschap, Jordan, Lessing, Leutze, Tidemand, and Schadow; and among the literary contributors are F. Bodenstedt, Emanuel Giebel, Hoffmann of Fallersleben, Otto Von Redwitz, Karl Simrock, and others of the most cherished names of the recent German literature. The letter-press consists entirely of poems, and charming ones some of them are. Α more beautiful book has not accompanied the entrance of the new year. SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. THE trial-trip of the Caloric Ship Ericsson took place on Tuesday, Jan. 11, in presence of a numerous deputation from the Press of this city, and scientific gentlemen whose interest in the new enterprise has remained unabated since its first inception. The company were invited by Captain ERICSSON, to witness this first public performance of his splendid ship, not because the vessel was altogether in preparation for minute inspection, but in consequence of the general anxiety respecting the feasibility of his new plan. The success of the trip established the principle of the new motive power to the entire satisfaction of all whose privilege it was to witness the experiment. The ship left her moorings off the Battery at an early hour in the morning, proceeded down the Bay to a distance of nine and a half miles, and returned to her anchorage at noon, having accomplished the trip of nearly twenty miles, in about two and a half hours. The average rate of speed was ten knots per hour, against wind and tide; a circumstance which speaks loudly in favor of the new principle and the utility of its application to sea-going vessels. The augmentation of power, when necessary, is to be obtained by increasing the diameter of the cylin ders of the engines. The largest size of those now employed is but fourteen feet, though the original intention of Capt. ERICSSON, was the employment of cylinders of sixteen feet at the least. The practicability of casting such immense masses, and warranting them, is now so well established, that the builders of the Ericsson's machinery profess themselves ready to manufacture at their own risk cylinders of twenty feet diameter,-a feat which has never yet been accomplished. It is unnecessary for us to enter into the details of the trip, or of the explanations, lucid and concise, with which the inventor was kind enough to favor the company; a former article in this journal has met the |