Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848

"I likewise learned that my husband has passed the only bridge by which he could make good his retreat; but in order to prevent pursuit by the foreign army, he had ordered it to be blown up at the very moment it was covered with thousands of Frenchmen, who were endeavoring to fly. By means of this murderous manœuvre he abandoned a part of his army on the bank of the stream."

Now this is a most inhuman calumny, and one that sounds strangely coming from a French woman, and that woman the wife of the unfortunate Napoleon. Bonaparte's strongest and ablest decryer, Alison, admits that the destruction of the bridge was an accident, resulting from the mistake of a corporal, who supposed the retreating French upon the bridge were the pursuing allies, and fired the train. It is seldom that we expect to find extraordinary instances of conjugal affection upon thrones; and we are strongly disposed to believe that the love of Josephine for her husband has been exaggerated. According to her own account, she had many previous draughts made upon her capital stock of love; and she describes her marriage with Napoleon as one induced by the representations of Barras and Mad. Tallien of the advantages to be derived from it. She thus characterizes her feelings toward Bonaparte just before marriage. "I discovered in him a tone of assurance and exaggerated pretension, which injured him greatly in my estimation. The more I studied his character, the more I discovered the oddities for which I was at a loss to account; and at length he inspired me with so much aversion that I ceased to frequent the house of Mad. Chat*** Ren***, where he spent his evenings." Notwithstanding the excessive affection professed, a large portion of the period of their connection seems to have been embroiled and troubled. Yet there can be no doubt that she devoted herself assiduously and faithfully to the promotion and protection of the greatness which she shared; and, at the close of her career, though she caressed his conquerors, she died uttering the warmest expressions of affection for him, even in the presence of his foe. The death-scene, as described by M'lle. Le Normand, is truly touching. Her last tears fell upon the portrait of Napoleon.

The whole story is full of romance, and will be read with great interest. The translator has performed his task with eminent ability; and the volumes are printed in a style highly creditable to the publishers.

Memoir of Sarah B. Judson, Member of the American Mission to Burmah. By "Fanny Forester." New York: L. Colby & Co.

It cannot be necessary for us to recommend to the readers of Graham's Magazine any work from the pen of the fascinating "Fanny Forester." Her literary history is associated in their minds with the most agreeable recollections of a female writer, among the sweetest, the most brilliant, the most charming of the many whom our country has produced. They will remember her, too, in that most eventful scene and surprising change of her life, in which the popular authoress was suddenly, and voluntarily, transformed into the humble missionary; sacrificing, from a sense of Christian duty, all the pride and allurements of literary distinction, along with friends, home, the safety and happiness of civilized society, that she might take up the cross, and carry it, an offering of salvation, to the benighted Heathen of Asia, even in the depths of their own far and pestilential climates.

The missionary appears again as on authoress; but it is in the lowly attitude of a biographer commemorating the virtues of a departed sister and predecessor in the same field of Christian devotion – the devoted and sainted woman whose places "Fanny Forester" herself now occupies as a wife and missionary, performing the same duties, exposed to the same trials and sufferings, in the same distant and perilous regions of Asia. The subject and the writer are thus united – we might say identified – as parts of the same attractive theme, and co-actors in the same sacred drama. Under such circumstances, the Memoir of Mrs. Judson could not be otherwise than profoundly interesting; and it will prove so, not only to all those who admire the authoress, but to all who love the cause to which she has dedicated her talents, her life, her fame. It is, indeed, a beautiful, a deeply engaging, an affecting volume, uniting a kind of romantic character, derived from the scenes and perils it describes, with the deeper interest of a record of the evangelization of the heathen. It is peculiarly adapted, too, to the reading of people of the world, whose hearts have not yet been warmed, or whose minds have not been instructed, on the subject of Christian missions. They cannot take it up without reading it; they cannot read it without rising better informed, and with better dispositions than before, in regard to the great cause which boasts – or has boasted – such servants as Mrs. Judson and "Fanny Forester."

The History of a Penitent. A Guide for the Inquiring, in a Commentary on the One Hundred and Thirtieth Psalm. By George W. Bethune, D.D., Minister of the Third Reformed Dutch Church, Philadelphia. Henry Perkins, 142 Chestnut Street.

This work, which is beautifully dedicated to Dr. Alexander, is written with much of the characteristic force and fervor of its author, and with more than his ordinary research and elaboration. He informs us that his purpose has been to help the inquiring soul and young Christian with counsel taken immediately from the unerring word: he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rather than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grace of style. Yet there is in this volume much of the author's usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been made acquainted with the high merits of Dr. Bethune as a poet, by his contributions to "Graham;" but highly as we appreciate his verse, there is a directness, an originality, an old-fashioned power in his prose which we prefer, and which we think place him in the first class of American writers. On subjects like that treated in the volume before us, his whole heart and mind seem to be poured into his pages; and in their perusal we doubt whether most to admire the divine or the rhetorician.

Keble's Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holidays throughout the Year. Philadelphia: Geo. S. Appleton. 148 Chestnut Street.

This beautiful volume is printed from the thirty-first London edition. Its merits are so well and universally known and appreciated that to review it would, to our readers, be tedious as a twice told tale. Suffice it to say, that its object is to bring the thoughts and feelings of worshipers into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in the Prayer Book. The poetry of this volume is often even worthy the exalted subjects of which it treats, and is never unworthy them. Its extraordinary popularity is the best evidence of its merit; for poetry is never generally and permanently popular without real merit.

notes

1

From a work now in press, and shortly to be published, entitled "The Military Heroes of the United States. By C. J. Peterson. 2 vols. 8vo. 500 pp."

2

Cain. – Genesis iv. 17.