Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

Drying the dew of earthly tears
From eyes like flowers upturned.

The aged feel its cheering ray,
Though, like pale stars at the break of day,
Its glory comes as they pass away
Into a realm untrod!
But may the young live to behold
Those golden days so long foretold,
When each lone wand’rer to the fold
Shall be reclaimed by God!

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

Reuben Medlicott, or The Coming Man. By M. W. Savage, Author of “The Bachelor of the Albany,” etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

“The Bachelor of the Albany” was a novel in which common sense was made to outshine and outsparkle paradox itself; and “Reuben Medlicott,” though inferior in sustained brilliancy of execution, is a worthy successor to the “Bachelor.” The object of the book is to exhibit the career of a man whose head is stuffed with multifarious information, who possesses mediocre but varied talents, and who mistakes a fluent use of words relating to universal ideas and generalized truths for the power to wield principles. He accordingly fails in every thing he undertakes. He cannot connect his words with affairs; practical life refuses all alliance with him. He becomes a lawyer, but despising details, and aspiring to the philosophy of law, it is soon discovered that he has neither technical knowledge nor grasp of principles. He is a great orator at philanthropic meetings, and his friends think he will make a great impression in Parliament. He is accordingly “put up” as a candidate, and the description of his election is one of the most mirth-provoking pieces of satire in the novel. He is elected, but is remorselessly coughed down in the House. Then, like all men of his peculiar kind, he makes a voyage to America, to see if he cannot succeed in the land of talkers. He thinks that he has some words in his wardrobe of verbiage which will induce the Southern States to abolish slavery. He fails in this, also, and the author conducts him through various other experiments to the close of his useless life. The novel is exactly calculated for the present time, and will exercise a good influence if generally read. The writer’s own principles are neither very lofty nor very broad, but he has the merit of resolving all moral bubbles “into their elemental suds.”

The Eclipse of Faith; or a Visit to a Religious Sceptic. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

This volume is by professor Henry Rogers, of England, the author of some of the ablest articles in the late numbers of the Edinburgh Review, and a most learned, accomplished, and earnest writer on religious subjects. The work is in the form of a dialogue, which enables the author to represent peculiarities of character as well as opinion, and give conversational ease to the statement of the weightiest truths. The reasoning, also, is more readily followed from its being in the shape of debate, our interest in the persons stimulating our attention to what they say. The two sceptical assumptions principally assailed in the volume are these: “that a revelation from God to men, through the agency of a book, is an unreasonable tenet of belief; and that it is impossible that a miracle should occur, and impossible that its occurrence should be authenticated.” The rationalists of all classes are vigorously assailed, Mr. Neuman, of England, and Mr. Theodore Parker, of the United States, being the principal persons against whose theories the author directs his argument. The style of the work is fluent and animated, sometimes rising to eloquence, and not without some fine examples of humor and wit. The chapter on “The Blank Bible,” is a very felicitous specimen of the author’s power of familiarizing and popularizing his views by striking illustrations.

Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs. By John Kenrick, A. M. New York: Redfield. 2 vols. 12mo.

This is a very valuable work on a country which has, of late years, increased in interest to Europeans, and been the subject of the most painstaking and profound research. Its history is to be gathered from a multitude of hints, which only ingenuity can interpret and follow out. The object of Mr. Kenrick’s volumes is to give a comprehensive view of the results of the researches of all travelers, artists, interpretators, and critics, who have made Egyptian archæology and history their study; and to describe, from knowledge thus obtained, “the land and the people of Egypt, their arts and sciences, their civil institutions, and their religions faith and usages,” and to relate their history from the earliest records of the monarchy to its final absorption in the empire of Alexander. The plan is an extensive one, and seems to us successfully executed. It is the only work which combines the results to which the many explorers of Egyptian mysteries have arrived, and may therefore be confidently recommended to the general reader as Ancient Egypt, “according to the latest dates.”

Parisian Sights and French Principles Seen Through American Spectacles. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.

Few titles are more descriptive than the present. It is a view of French society, amusements, morals, manners, and government, by an intelligent and inquisitive American, who has glanced, with his spectacled eyes into many nooks and corners of Parisian life, not open to the ordinary observer. We have some doubts whether the representation is a moral one, though seen from an American point of view, especially that portion referring to the peculiar relations between the sexes in Paris. But there is a great deal of innocent information given in the volume which we have seen in no other; and the book is invaluable to the traveler as a sort of piquant guide. The Harpers have issued it, profusely illustrated by elegant wood-cuts, and excellently printed, for only eighty-three cents. As it is a copyright volume, this price is low even for such cheapeners of books as they are.

Philosophers and Actresses. By Arsene Houssaye. New York: Redfield. 2 vols. 12mo.

These volumes, like those on the “Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century,” which preceded them, are devoted to a description of the profligate society of Paris during the reign of Louis XV., and have all the lightness, brilliancy, and bland un-morality characteristic of their author. The painters, sculptors, poets and philosophers of the age, are all exhibited on their soft side, and the book demonstrates how little the ostentatious professors of reason, who, in their writings, were lifted so far above the prejudices and passions of mankind, were guided by reason in their conduct. Voltaire, especially, is shown to be the mere slave of the caprices of the several women he loved. He was worse off than many a hen-pecked husband. The volumes are elegantly printed, and are adorned with fine portraits of Voltaire and Madame de Parabère.

Comparative Physiognomy; or Resemblances between Men and Animals. By James W. Redfield, M. D. Illustrated by 330 Engravings. New York: Redfield. 1 vol. 8vo.

This book is exceedingly ingenious, and as brilliant and readable as it is ingenious. The writer is bold to audacity in his criticism on men and on classes, and every page is racy with individual peculiarities. We do not know whether the volume is a scientific joke or not, but the resemblances the author traces between men and animals are often very happy, and seem to point to some occult principle of organization and expression. Hogs, monkeys, cats, hares, foxes, lions, are made to repeat themselves in human heads and countenances with startling effect. The author has given us about a hundred portraits of eminent men and women, with their animal prototypes annexed; and in addition to this he has generalised the shape and expression of whole classes of men into one portrait, and then, putting a pig or a fox by its side, says confidently to the reader, “judge ye.” The book is a very amusing one, even if it have but a fanciful value as regards the leading idea of the author’s theory.

Palissy the Potter. The Life of Bernard Palissy, of Saintes; his Labors and Discoveries in Art and Science, etc. By Henry Morley. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2 vols. 16mo.

The subject of this biography is probably but little known in the United States, though the admirable account of his life and character printed in these elegant volumes, will doubtless make him familiar to many who never before heard his name. He lived an eventful life between the years 1507 and 1589, “one of the obscurely great,” says Mr. Morley, “among the prominently little” of his day. The volumes give an animated picture of the civil and religious discords of France in the sixteenth century, in connection with the narrative of the privations, persecutions, and imprisonments which Palissy underwent on account of his heretical opinions. As regards both powers of mind and honesty of character he was undoubtedly one of the foremost men of his time; and truth owes a debt to his biographer for rescuing his services to art, to science, to religion, and to France, from the oblivion into which they were fast falling. The book has the interest of a romance, and may be classed among the most captivating biographies written during the present century.

Village Life in Egypt. With Sketches of the Saïd. By Bayle St. John. Author of “Adventures in the Libyan Desert.” Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 2 vols. 18mo.

A book of travels so rare and strange in its incidents and descriptions, devoted to scenes and people so different from those coming within the observation of ordinary travelers, and written with such thorough knowledge of the subject, as this book of Bayle St. John, is a luxury to read. It gives a complete insight into the poor laboring population of Egypt, and palpably exhibits the abysses of degradation and misery into which tyranny relentlessly plunges the people it pretends to govern. The manners and customs which St. John describes, have sometimes the strange effect on the imagination, which might come from reading an account of things as they are in some other planet. The book is admirably written, has, in its diction, that air of luxurious repose which tourists seem to catch from the climate of Egypt, and is a worthy companion to Kinglake’s “Eothen” and Warburton’s “Crescent and the Cross.” It is published, from advance sheets, in Ticknor & Co.’s most elegant and tasteful style.

A Journal kept during a Summer Tour, for the Children of a Village School. By the author of “Amy Herbert,” etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

This delightful volume is divided into three parts – the first giving an account of a tour from Ostend to the lake of Constance, the second from the lake to the Simplon, and the third from the Simplon through Tyrol to Genoa. It is laden with information, of especial interest to the young, is written in a style of much clearness and simplicity, and is pervaded by that sweet and genial tone of morality and religion, characteristic of all the writing of Miss Sewall.

Comparative Psychology of Universal Analogy. Vegetable Portraits of Character. By M. Edgeworth Lazarus, M. D. New York: Fowler & Wells. 1 vol. 12mo.

The ingenious author of this singular volume makes botany speak the language of Swedenborgianism, Fourierism, mysticism, and many other isms of the day. It is as curious a theory of symbolism as we have ever read, and whatever may be thought of the scientific value of the writer’s statements, they must be submitted to be exceedingly interesting and entertaining.

Men’s Wives. By William M. Thackeray. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 16mo.

The articles of which this volume is made up were originally written for Fraser’s Magazine, under the alias of George Fitz-Boodle. They have all the unreined heartiness of wit and humor for which that periodical was once so celebrated, and are as worthy of Thackeray’s genius as the “Yellowplush Correspondence” itself, which was written for the same magazine. From sly and searching satire to mirthful caricature, there is hardly a region of the ludicrous which this little volume does not occupy and illustrate. It forms one of the series of Appleton’s Popular Library.

The Eagle Pass; or Life on the Border. By Cora Montgomery. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.

This volume belongs to the original and copy-righted series of Putnam’s Semi-Monthly Library, and like the other numbers, is placed at the low price of twenty-five cents. The authoress of the present work has written a very entertaining narrative of her experiences of Texas border-life, and, with shrewd powers of observation and a tact for character peculiarly feminine, she combines manly qualities of thought and courage. Her description of Peon slavery is worthy the attention of statesmen.

Stories from Blackwood. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 18mo. (Appleton’s Popular Library.)

These stories are entitled “The First and Last Dinner,” “Malavolti,” “The Iron Shroud,” “The Avenger,” “The Announcements and Three Rooms”, “Nicholas Dunks,” and “Fortune-hunting Extraordinary.” Few of these are any better in plot or style than the ordinary run of tales contributed to American magazines. “The First and Last Dinner” and “Nicholas Dunks,” are perhaps the best in the collection.

The Lives of Wellington and Peel. From the London Times. New York: D. Appleton & Co. (Appleton’s Popular Library.) 1 vol. 18mo.

The life of Wellington, in this volume, was published in The Times the day after his death, and was written, it is said, six years ago, to be used as soon as needed. It is quite a long and able summary of the events of the duke’s memorable career, and will be read at present with great interest. The life of Peel is also well-written and discriminating.

notes

1

It may not probably be known to ordinary readers that while a copperplate-engraving begins to fail after two or three thousand copies have been taken from it, and is worthless after six or eight thousand, fifty or sixty thousand can be taken from wood-blocks, and yet more from steel, without detriment.

2

History Wood Engraving. Jackson. London.

3

As an exemplication of the above statement, two wood-cuts are here submitted, with the view of proving the absolute necessity of a good artist-like drawing to enable the engraver to produce a handsome or even creditable wood-cut. Both the following cuts are from one sketch, by the great landscape-painter Morland – the one meagre, tame, unfilled, and presenting nothing beyond a bare, cold outline; the other a remarkably spirited and flowing sketch, not one of the extra or additional lines being supernumerary, but each tending to give both effect and support to the outline.

4

And here it is well to point out to those seeking to obtain good wood-engravings, for the illustration of works which they propose to write or publish, that there are two absurdities, about equally great, usually committed by persons in their position. The one of which is the ordering and paying liberally for the work of a clever artist and designer, and then mulcting the engraver one half the price he ought to receive, if he do his duty and spend the requisite time on the work, and wondering why the product is a wretched botch and not a fine work of art. The other is the converse of this, paying an engraver well to cut, and grudging the extra expense of a good artist. For it must be remembered, that in wood-engraving the artist and designer, where they are not one, as in the case of Bewick and a few others – and this is a rare case – must work in unity of intent, with a perfect comprehension of, and a full sympathy in, the meaning and genius each of the other.

5

Entrance of chamber B, plan 3.

6

Ezekiel, xxxi. 3, etc.; Zephaniah, ii. 13 and 14.

7

Chamber C.