LITERATURE.

AMERICAN.-Three portly volumes, containining "The Works of WILLIAM H. SEWARD," have just been published by Redfield. They contain nearly every thing that has come from the prolific pen of their author, from his messages as Governor of the State of New-York, and his speeches in the Senate of the United States, down to his addresses to Whig meetings, and his general correspondence. Nor is there any want of variety in the topics of which they treat-politics, internal improvements, farming, education, prison discipline, Ireland and Irishmen, Webster, Clay, Lafayette, Kossuth, slavery, as well as law arguments and letters to dinner committees, are among them; some treated with elaborate carefulness, and others in a more brief and familiar style. A memoir of the author, with an engraving of his face and residence, is prefixed to the whole. As it is our intention to devote a special article to this book, we satisfy ourselves here with a simple announcement of its appearance.

-What a rare instance of almost equal eminence in two brothers, is that of the BROTHERS HUMBOLDT, a sketch of whose biography, translated from the German, has recently been published by the Harp ers! ALEXANDER, the man of science, unquestionably takes the precedence of WILLIAM, the statesman and diplomatist; but both are men of the highest intellectual range, and the noblest character. The incidents of their travels and studies given in the volume before us are full of interest and instruction.

-"The_Captive in Patagonia," by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BOURNE-a gentleman who, going ashore at the Straits of Magellan, fell into the hands of the Giants, whose manners and customs, their cruelty, cowardice and filthiness, he describes with no little animation and apparent fidelity. He was kept too close a prisoner to allow him to add much to our geographical knowledge of the country.

-A valuable work, the "Correspondence of the Revolution," to be edited by JARED SPARKS, is announced at Boston. It will contain letters from more than a hundred individuals, who acted a conspicuous part in our revolutionary drama, and who were among the correspondents of Washington. The editor selected and copied them from the original manuscripts while engaged in preparing the "Writings of Washington," and they may, therefore, be regarded as a continuation of that work. Illustrative of the life of the Great Chief, and at the same time of the

opinions and actions of his friends and acquaintances, they cannot but prove an important addition to our historical literature. Mr. SPARKS is a laborious and generally faithful editor, but we hope that in the forthcoming volumes he has confined his editorial supervision to the work of compilation, and not correction. We fully agree with Lord Mahon, that the writings of eminent historical personages ought to be given to us with all their imperfections on their head.

-Rural Essays by A. J. Downing, edited, with a memoir of the author, by Geo. Wm. Curtis; and a letter to his friends by Frederika Bremer, is the title of a large volume just issued by G. P. Putnam & Co., uniform with Mr. Downing's Landscape Gardening. The book comprises his contributions to the Horticulturist, and contains a great number of essays upon all departments of rural life, treated with that singular mastery of the subject, and the ability to present the most accurate rural science in a popular, graceful and elegant manner, which so eminently distinguished the author. We have lost few men whom the country could so ill spare as Downing. His influence was universally acknowledged and perceived, and his works will long continue to be our standard authorities in American rural art. The present volume completes his works. It is an entirely original book in its way; a unique collection of essays interesting and instructive not only to those who live in the country, but to all who have any sympathies beyond the city. We remark especially his chivalric courtesy toward women, the graceful hints and cheerful advice he gives them concerning their gardens and flowers, and his great interest in the rural life of English women, to which he alludes in his letters from England,— which form part of the volume,—as well as in several of the essays. The profound regard which he inspired in many women, whose friendship he was fortunate enough to enjoy, is well indicated in the communication of Miss Bremer, which speaks of him, as the Editor observes in the preface, "with the unreserved warmth of a private letter." It is a volume heartily to be commended as a book for summer reading; while its calm and shrewd insight, its various and regulated knowledge, its transparent and simple style, will make it a permanent companion of the thoughtful and refined who believe, with Lord Bacon, that "God Almighty first planted a garden," and, indeed, it is the first of human pleasures.

-We have not heard of Martin Farquhar Tupper's being sent to an insane asylum, or we should suspect him of writing a little book entitled the New Bond of Love, which has been politely sent to us, but which is so strictly anonymous that the title-page does not even bear the name of a publisher. The book is extremely Tupperish, but with a certain wildness that the author of Proverbial Philosophy has not displayed in any of his published writings. The new bond of love which the author has invented, consists of the following modest proposal, which is almost equal to Swift's humane suggestion for the alleviation of Irish suffering.

"Let every human being under the broad face of heaven, make up his mind, by his own free will, to work during one month of every year, according to the best of his ability, for the benefit of those who are only less competent, but not less good."

-Stuart's work on the Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States, recently published by Norton, of this city, is one of the very finest examples of book-making that we can boast of. It is not often that a purely scientific and practical work is published as a show-book, like the brilliant works of fancy that are expressly intended for the ornamentation of centre tables in richly furnished drawing-rooms.

-A book published in nearly as handsome style as the above is Bartlett's Commercial and Banking Tables, which comes to us from Cincinnati, and gives a most satisfactory indication of the arts of printing and binding west of the Alleghanies. It is a most serviceable and excellent work.

-"The Autobiography of an English Soldier in the United States Army," is the title of a rather readable volume which has been recently republished from the London edition by Stringer & Townsend. It is worthy of remark, that while some of our most popular authors graduated in our national and mercantile ships, the army has not furnished us a single writer of eminence; and the fact is the more remarkable, as the officers of the army have nearly all had an academical education, while our navy is composed chiefly of self-educated men. Our English soldier was a Scotch hand-loom weaver, who came to this country to work at his trade, and, not finding employment, enlisted in the army, and served through the Mexican war. It is very well to have the observations of an intelligent soldier, who was a participator in the Mexican campaign, and who is sure of not erring on the favorable side in giving his account of the conduct of our army.

-"Virginalia; or Songs of my Sum

mer Nights-A Gift of Love for the Beautiful," is the inexplicable title of a small volume of verse by T. H. CHIVERS, M. D., which has come to us from Philadelphia, although it is copyrighted in Massachusetts. Dr. CHIVERS remarks in his preface, that "it is obvious that no true poet ever yet wrote for the Aristarchi of the world-only to show them how little they know-but only for the divine Areopagus of Heaven." And we coincide wholly in the Doctor's opinion. We do not think any true poet ever did any thing of the kind. What possible motive could have induced the author of the book before us, after having written his verses to publish them, we have no means of knowing, although he says in concluding his preface, “Thus have I moulded on the swift circling wheel of my soul some of the manifold members of that Divine Beauty which lives immortal in the shining House of Life." And therein, we imagine, lies the whole mystery.

-An instructive book is the "Reason and Faith and other Miscellaneous Essays," of HENRY RODGERS. They are extracted mostly from the Edinburgh Review, where they attracted considerable attention at the time by their learning, vigor, and pervading thoughtfulness. Rodgers can scarcely be regarded as a profound thinker, though he certainly is an acute and careful one, while his writings exhibit unusual cultivation, and the most decided religious principle. His articles

Mr.

on Old Fuller, the church historian, and on the Correspondence of Luther, are as agreeable as they are instructive.

-A complete edition of "Jefferson's Works" is said to be in preparation at Washington, the editorship having been committed to the hands of a distinguished gentleman of Virginia. All the collections of Jefferson that we have had heretofore have been incomplete, giving us merely fragments of his voluminous productions. Jefferson was the master-spirit of his day, who left the impress of his genius on the institutions and mind of his country; and every thing that he wrote ought to be in the possession of the public. We should like to see as perfect a record of his existence made, as Charles Francis Adams has given us of his illustrious rival and friend John Adams. But let there be no tampering with his manuscripts: what we have a right to, in the case of all such men, is their own sayings and doings, and not the interpretations of editors, who may conceive it necessary to suppress or alter their writings, to suit the opinions of the day, or of particular localities. If Jefferson had weaknesses, or was chargeable with inconsistencies, or entertained offensive opinions,

let us know what they were, that we may form an intelligent judgment of his character.

-There must be a perennial freshness in the works of Mr. N. P. WILLIS, for they bloom year after year, and seem as fragrant now as when they were first blown. They are, at any rate, a proof that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." We have before us, for instance,

а

"Cruise in the Mediterranean," which we remember to have read a few years since as part of a big book issued by Redfield, and which we then remembered to have read also, some twenty years before, in the old "Mirror," but which we have reperused within the last week, with as much eagerness and delight as we expended on the earliest editions. The rose of our Mirror days is still a rose; or, in other words, the travels of Mr. Willis, twenty-five years since, are newer and more agreeable than the travels of many a man with the dust still in his boots. He has such a sharply observant eye for all that is picturesque in scenery, or original and striking in manners, manages with such nice tact to convey his own sensibilities into the mind of his readers, tells a piquant story with so delicate a smack, sentimentalizes with so knowing an air, and yet enters into the real romance of adventure with so rollicking a zest and honest a faith, that it is quite impossible to escape the fascination of his pages. We have no doubt, therefore, that his books will be read for twenty-five years to come, with as much pleasure as they have been during the past twenty-five-which is giving them a half-century of immortality -a large slice.

-The literary world has cracked its jokes, the past month, and indulged in many a hearty guffaw over the Interviews Memorable and Useful, from Diary and Memory, by Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, D.D. But the doctor is as unconscious of his amusing pedantry as parson Abraham Adams, and he reminds us strongly of that best of parsons by his sturdy, hearty, and simple-minded boldness in saying what he thinks, in his own way, let the world laugh at him as it will. The Doctor's style is none of the best, and his memory may sometimes play him false in relating his interviews, but he is always self-poised and original, and just as sure of being exactly right in every thing he may choose to do, or believe, as ever Davy Crocket was, when he had determined to go ahead. Let the Doctor appear to others as he may, he always appears to himself with as palpable a nimbus round his head as ever encircled the crown of a saint. To have so comfortable an opinion of one's

The state

self is better than a fortune. of mind which the author must enjoy who could have written such dedications, and published such poetry, any poor mortal might envy. Those who laugh at the Doctor have all their merriment to themselves; he would as soon suspect the world of laughing at the ponderous tower of his brown stone church, as at his solemnly-intended utterances. Yet the Doctor is by no means lacking in a percep tion of humor, as his most amusing description of the manner of Dr. Chalmers in the pulpit can testify; but no one who reads the "Interviews" will suspect the author of that strange volume of entertaining a suspicion that there is any thing either peculiar or humorous in his own manner.

ENGLISH.-Some of the London critics fancy that they have found a new poet in the person of Mr. ALEXANDER SMITH,the name, by the way, under which the great poet and orator of Hungary left the United States. But Alexander Smith, who purports to be the author of a "Life Drama," is a real personage possessed of genuine poetical genius, and destined to a high position in the world of letters. That our readers may judge of the style in which he writes, the lady-love of Walter, the chief character of the "Life Drama, " charging him with being a book-worm, he replies:

Books written when the soul is at spring-tide,
When it is laden like a groaning sky

Before a thunder-storm, are power and gladness.
And majesty and beauty. They seize the reader
As tempests seize a ship, and bear him on
With a wild joy. Some books are drenched sands,
On which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy. What power in books!
They mingle gloom and splendor, as I've oft,
In thund'rous sunsets, seen the thunder-piles
Seamed with dull fire and fiercest glory-rents.
They awe me to my knees, as if I stood
In presence of a king. They give me tears;
Such glorious tears as Eve's fair daughters shed,
When first they clasped a Son of God all bright
With burning plumes and splendors of the sky,
In zoning heaven of their milky arms.
How few read books aright! Most souls are shut
By sense from grandeur, as a man who snores,
Night-capped and wrapt in blankets to the nose,
Is shut out from the night, which, like a sea,
Breaketh for ever on a strand of stars.

Here is another passage, in which inter-
nal nature is penetrated with passion:
Sunset is burning like the seal of God
Upon the close of day.-This very hour
Night mounts her chariot in the eastern glooms
To chase the flying Sun, whose flight has left
Footprints of glory in the clouded west:
Swift is she haled by winged swimming steeds,
Whose cloudy manes are wet with heavy dews
And dews are drizzling from her chariot wheels.
Soft in her lap lies drowsy -lidded Sleep,
Brainful of dreams, as summer hive with bees:
And round her in the pale and spectral light
Flock bats and risly owls on noiseless wings.
The flying sun goes down the burning west,
Vast night comes noiseless up the eastern slope,
And so the eternal chase goes round the world.
Unrest! unrest! The passion-panting sea
Watches the unveiled beauty of the stars

Like a great hungry soul. The unquiet clouds
Break and dissolve, then gather in a mass

And float like mighty icebergs through the blue.
Summers, like blushes, sweep the face of earth;
Heaven yearns in stars. Down comes the frantic
rain;

We hear the wail of the remorseful winds

In their strange penance. And this wretched orb Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world, Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.

There is surely great originality and affluence here, which augur a bright future for Mr. Smith.

-Nelly Armstrong, a story of the day." is the pretty name of a novel, by the author of Rose Douglass, which is well received in England. It tells the old tale of country virtue going to the city, to be seduced and wrecked, and then rescued again by the kind-hearted interposition of friends. Its pictures of life in the wynds of Edinburgh are as dark and fearful as any of the scenes in Uncle Tom's Cabin, and if true, exhibit a field for the benevolence of the excellent ladies of Stafford House, quite as ready for the harvest as any to be found on this side of the Atlantic.

FRANCE. HAWTHORNE'S Scarlet Letter has been well translated into French, and is duly admired by the Gallic public. The Revue des Deux Mondes says that it is an excellent selection to initiate French readers in the style of the author, as a thinker and romance writer, and that he treats his subject with manly boldness and touching dramatic power.

-M. NESTOR ROQUEPLAN, the manager of the Grand Opera of Paris, has published, under the title of La Vie Parisienne, a collection of theatrical reminiscences, sketches of travel, literary fragments, and such other intellectual baggage as he has judged would interest the universe. We are sorry to say that M. Roqueplan's book is not as piquant as it ought to be, and that we would prefer an evening in his magnificent theatre, with one of Meyerbeer's spectacles, and Garcia upon the stage, to all the works he could publish, if he were to keep writing and publishing until France obtains a settled government.

-California and Australia have not only flooded the world with gold, but have also let loose a deluge of newspaper articles, pamphlets, and other disquisitions on the effect which the flood must have on property, commerce and industry in their various relations. In the fulfilment of our duty we have dug through many of these treatises, but none of them with more real instruction than M. TEGOBORSKI's Essai sur les conséquences éventuelles de la découverte des gites aurifères en Californie et en Australie. The

VOL. I.-38

author is not only a very able statistician and economist, but from his official position in Russia has made the management and yield of the Siberian gold mines a matter of particular study. He does not anticipate that the product of California and Australia will produce any permanent disturbance of the present relation in the value of gold and silver, for the reason that a largely increased production of the latter may ere long be expected. The silver-producing regions of the world now yield nothing compared with what might be derived from them.

-Apropos to controversies now on foot comes M. DE BREVAL'S Mazzini jugé par lui-meme et par ses Tiens (Mazzini judged by himself and by his adherents), a bitter assault upon the Italian leader which goes back for material through the history of the last twenty years. Those who desire to know the worst that may be said of Mazzini, may here find it uttered with skill and hearty hatred.

-The approaching new edition of the writings of the first Napoleon will contain some things fit to shine in any future collection of literary curiosities. Among these are Giulio, a Conversation on the Tender Passion, an Oriental Tale, Notes on his Infancy and Youth, and a Plan of Suicide, which on one occasion when still young he actually came near putting in execution. His correspondence with Maria Louisa will also figure in the collection. Rev. J. S. C. Abbott will perhaps find in it some new reason for putting this man along with Washington among the sacred heroes and benefactors of humanity.

-Les Cesars (The Cesars), by M. F. CHAMPAGNY, is a series of careful studies, on the different emperors of Rome. The author narrates the life of each of these individuals, and paints with spirit and fidelity the varying phases of Roman society under their successive reigns. An appendix contains a solid mass of statistics with regard to the revenues, resources, and expenditures of the government they administered. The work has passed to a second edition.

-To novel-readers we commend the Contes de Printemps (Tales of Spring), by M. CHAMPFLEURY, a book full of youthful genius, and touching interest.

-La Lotus de la bonne Loi (The Lotus of the Good Law), is the last work of EUGENE BURNOUF, the deceased philologian. It is a translation from the Sanscrit, with a commentary and essays on different points of the Buddhist system. Philological science has no other recent production to be compared with this in magnitude or importance.

-If MADAME DE GIRARDIN's new comedy has not obtained the brilliant success to which its title seemed to pretend, she may hold herself compensated by the praise bestowed on Marguerite, a new novel from her vigorous and graceful pen. It is a story of love and despair, touching in itself, but doubly fascinating from the delicate feminine good sense, the facile wit, and agreeable, elegant style in which it is narrated.

-Mont-Reveche, a new novel by GEORGE SAND, has made its appearance, to be sadly beset by some of the French critics. They accuse it of defective artistic management, a meagre plot, impossible characters, and absurd action. Against its moral character not a word have we seen. By some chance a copy of it has not yet reached America, and so we say nothing either to it or its assailants.

GERMANY.-The publication in numbers of a new History of the German People from the earliest times to the Desent, has just been commenced at Berlin, where two parts have appeared, bringing the subject down to the invasion of Attila in the west of Europe. The author is Mr. JACOB VENEDEY, a member of the famous Frankfort Parliament, and a man in many respects competent to the Herculean task he has undertaken. It is curious that in the whole wilderness of German books, there is no first-rate work on the history of the German people, though there are many good histories of particular epochs and movements. We mean that there is no history of the Germans which is at once erudite and popular, accurate in fact and eloquent in style and spirit. We hope Mr. Venedey may supply the deficiency.

-RICHARD WAGNER is the poet and musician of the gigantic. His conceptions are enormous. His works are laid out on plans of almost boundless magnitude. Some day he will make an opera, or, as he would call it, a dramatic and musical epic, embracing the entire history of the world. At present he is at work on the Niebelungen Lied. The poem is done, and only the music remains to be composed for it. The execution of this immense work will occupy four successive performances. It is called The Ring of the Niebelungen, a Stage Play of a Preliminary Evening and three Days. The drama of the preliminary evening is entitled The RhineGold; that of the first day, The Walkyre; that of the second day, The Young Sigfrid; and that of the third, Sigfrid's Death. This century-nor any other for that matter-has not witnessed such

a literary and artistic undertaking; for it must be understood, that Wagner writes not for the student, but for the public, and for actual performance upon the stage. It is a doubtful matter, however, whether any man can possess a genius grand and potent enough to take the amusement-loving public for four successive days to the theatre, in order to see the beginning, middle and end of a single opera.

A readable book is DR. KLOPP'S Narratives and Traits of Character in the time of the German Empire from 843 to 1125, just published at Leipzig. It is written in a pleasant flowing style, and with undoubted historical accuracy. For young people especially, the annals of that obscure period, lying as they seem to do midway between history and romance, have a great charm, and we should suppose that a skilful translator might draw from this work the materials of a very popular and useful little volume.

- HOFMANN VON FALLERSLEBEN pursues his literary studies with zeal none the less fruitful, because he has been obliged by circumstances to omit revolutionary politics from their programme. He has just added a very valuable contribution to the means of appreciating the literature of the middle ages in Germany. We refer to Theophilus, a Low-German play, which he has discovered in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, and published with an introduction, commentary and glossary. Theophilus is but another name for the mythical Faust of the Germans, and Dr. Hoffmann is of opinion that this play is the first part of a trilogy the remainder of which is lost. His introduction and notes are of the highest value to those whose tastes and investigations run in that direction.

One of the most attractive recent productions of the German press is the Symbolik der Menschlichen Gestalt (Symbolism of the Human Form), published at Leipzig, from the learned and eloquent pen of DR. CARUS. As a specimen of style, few works in German are more admirable, while its combination of profound learning with poetic vitality, its frequent eloquence and brilliant glimpses of new ideas, commend it to the study of all who would appreciate more thoroughly the relations of soul and body. In some respects it may be compared with Wilkinson's book on Man and his Body. It is intended for popular rather than professional use. The physiologists accuse it of being inexact and imaginative.

DR. BECK of Reutlingen, has a new work on a subject of interest to philoso