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    Pecbmbbr g5, 1852.] THE LEADER. 1*39

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    A BATCH OF Nf)W BOOKS. T is no easy task...

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    armours i-iiio and acts in Hungary. My T...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Si'ontanuons (Jflnkkatton. Noportsmadc T...

    deeper , the great mystery of this world presents other aspects underlying those classifications , and we see how everything , from the lowest to the highest , moves towards Life . Death is a name we give to a change ; but Mature knows no Death ; what we csM dead matter , and ignorantly despise , 13 only dead to our dull senses . Look where we will , we only see Life abounclingV lafe aspiring , Life triumphant 1

    Pecbmbbr G5, 1852.] The Leader. 1*39

    Pecbmbbr g 5 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1 * 39

    A Batch Of Nf)W Books. T Is No Easy Task...

    A BATCH OF Nf ) W BOOKS . T is no easy task to keep pace with the rapid publications of the " season , " even in journals specially devoted to literature ; in our own restricted limits the thing is obviously impossible ; and yet as our readers are kind enough to have some confidence at least in the integrity of our judgments it is but right that they should have some such brief indication of what to buy , what to read , and what to avoid , as we can contrive for them . This is peculiarly a book-buying season , and from the mass upon / our table we select a batch of very various works , addressed to very various wants . The Children's Books we will speak of next week .

    Among the wants of the season are sumptuous Gift Books , appealing to the purses of godpapas , aunts , and other reminiscent relatives , and claiming a place among the elegancies and graces of a drawing-room . The season has not been so prodigal of such books as heretofore ; but among those produced let a place be reserved for The Poetry of the Tear , ( George Bell , ) an elegant and poetic volume , sumptuously got up with all the appliances of the engraver ' s , printer ' s , binder ' s various arts . It consists of passages from English and American poets , descriptive of aspects of nature and English life during the four seasons ; and illustrated by

    twenty-two coloured engravings , from the designs of Cox , Duncan , Weir , Muller , L . E . Barker , Creswick , Hemsley , Weigall , E . V . B . Birkett Poster ,, Davidson , and others . The designs are of unequal merit , some having the real artistic feeling , others bemg conventional repetitions of forms and expressions . Birkett Foster charmingly touches off the " Spring and playtime of the year , " when little villagers gather kingcups in the thick grass ; and Harrison Weir , with his group of cattle and sheep in the shady summer place , carries us heart and soul into the country . Creswiek gives us a glimpse of Windermere , which in itself is a poem . Hemsley rivals Hunt

    in" Little Tom and roguish Kate Swinging on the meadow gate . * David Cox makes us young again with his " June Day . " The volume is handsome to a faulty a little leas costliness would have increased our comfort ; at present we are so afraid of " soiling" it , that we handle it " gingerly . " This applies only to the external . . A . book of more substantial merit and beauty , and one which with all its splendour invites rather than intimidates , is the new edition of Wordsworth's Greece , Pictorial , Descriptive , and Historical , ( W . S . Orr andCo ., ) wWh th « miblishers have riffhtly judged to be an excellent Gritt J 3 ooic .

    This is more then a new edition of the well-known work . It nas been revised and re-arranged by the author , and is enriched—we use the stereotyped phrase with a meaning—by an introductory chapter onCrreek Art , which in the space of seventy pages , illustrated with one hundred and seventy-nine engravings from vases , statues , & c , presents an historical outline of the progress of Art from its origin to its decline . Here the aid of Mr . Scharf , so well known by previous works on this subject , lias been called in by the publishers most efficiently . As it now stands , Wordsworth ' s Pictorial Greece is a- work of value , as well as a work ot beauty ; it is to be read , nay , studied , and yot it will be conspicuous among the elegancies of the table . There is a sobriety and a taste in its rivals

    the getting up which will make it as distinguished among gaudy , as the plain black coat of Castlereagh was at the Congress of Vienna , amidst the star-covered ministers and ambassadors of other courts . The same publishers send us another Gift Book , of a very different kind and addressed to a different class , Ouvier ' s Animal Kingdom , in one largo volume , edited by Dr . Carpenter and J . O . Wostwood . It would be difficult to name a bettor book to present to young men , to students , to lovers of natural history , to the whole class of readers , in short , who eare for substantial excellence more than for elegance . It is not for the drawing-room , in spite of its many hundred illustrations ; but lor the study where it will bo a delight and a constant reference . Cuvicr a Tteqnc Animal acquired its popularity at once , and has never been superfleded - butof course , in so progressive a science as that of zoology , it , has notes tie

    , been necessarV , from time to time , to correct ami enlarge by mistakes and omissions inseparable from so vast an undertaking , llio way this haa been done in the edition before us is admirable , and should bo followed in all similar cases . Cuvier's work is translated ; the original , as regards essentials , is retained ; and the additions , instead of being thrown into foot-notes ( always a distracting plan for the reader ) , is incorporated into the text , but designated by brackets , which enclose them ; Bomo of the later corrections are in brief foot-notes , llio whole-subject th the

    has been distributed among four zoologists—Mr lilyundertaking Mammalia , Birds , and Reptiles ; Mr . Robert- Mudio the lishoa and Radiafa ; Dr . George Johnston the Mollusca ; and Mr . J , O . Wentwood the Insects . By their aid nmny of the classes and orders have been reinvesfciffuted , and man * new apeeioH added . Dr . Carpenter and Mr . Westwood in this edition have gone over the work of their predecessors , and brought it down to the latest discoveries On looking over this great Museum of Natural History , wo exclaim with IVTarlowo ' s .

    lew" Intfnito riches iu n littlo room , " and think , with a ai K U , what heaps of books that have engaged our time would wo have exchanged for this ! What a boolc it would have been for our boyhood ! What a treasure for our studious youth I Compared with Hie value of sueh a survey of Nature , what are Annuals and . Keepsakes , Gift Hooks , and the rest , with their fugitive splendour ot gilt and ongravin « P liflBpeetod ^ tender , if you aro opening your jnirso for something more ttyn o * tontatiou , und if \<> u want to henojit your godson , nephew , gran 4 aon , or brqthpr , open it far a Cuvier ! Passing from tho Gift Books par excellence to those that may be

    bought , borrowed , or stolen ( ad libitum ) , there is a pretty little volume of Edgar Poe s Poetical Works ( Addey & Co . ) , with an editorialpreftce by James Hannay , and some illustrations by Wehnerfc , Hulme , Godwin , and Weir—good , bad , and indifferent . Of the Essay , in which Mr . Hannay sketches the leading traits of the poet ' s life and genius , we must express but a qualified opinion . It is lively as an essay , and vividly enough presents some of the main features which , the reader of Poe will be called upon to consider ; but the tone is questionable , and the defence attempted to be setup fbrPoe ' s drunkenness and dissipation is a violation rtf nil t > thina \ interments . Poe was a man who could not restrain himself .

    Lord of himself and his own greedy senses he was not . Let the thing be owned ; let it be judged with as little harshness as may be possible ; but let no shadow of defence be set up for it on the ground that he was a poet , and a passionate worshipper of the Beautiful ! If sottishness and disrespect of duties are to be reprobated in sots and scamps , they are doubly hideous in men who , having within them the refining fire of genius , are not refined—in men who , loving the Beautiful in their poems , realize the Ignoble in their lives—in men " who know the right , and yet the wrong pursue . " We touch this point , we will not dwell on it . The estimate of Poe ' s genius formed by Mr . Hannay strikes us as exaggerated , and he is peculiarly unfortunate , we think , in calling the verses to " Helen Horatian in their finish . Finish is scarcely the term for verses that have imperfections in metre , laxity in rhyme , and an obscurity m expressionfaults which the second and third of the three stanzas possess . ± ne volume is a curious one , and deserves its place on poetical shelves .

    Professor George Long is editing a series of Grammar School Classtos ( Whittaker & Co ;) , which promises to be a series of considerable vajue . He is a ripe scholar , a man well versed in the requirements of school editions , a man of sharp , imperious , independent judgment , who has , moreover , supreme contempt for verbose annotations and critical tuning ; and his edition of Cesar's Commentaries , now before us , we can emp hatically commend as brief , practical , careful , erudite , and adapted to its aim . Nearly all that can be desired in the shape of a portable volume ot in the in Italian Literature

    qlegant extracts is contained Readings Prose , by G . Aubrey Bezzi ( J . W . Parker & Son ) , with the biographical sketches appended to them ; and we have rarely seen a more useful work ot the kind than Dr . Bernays' German Conversation Booh ( J . W . Parker & fconj , which consists of scenes from the German prose dramatists , accompanied by translations on the opposite columns . If it will give the beginner but a dreary idea of German comedy ( true , though dreary ) , it will initiate him into the real language , and not mislead , him , as " Conversations usually do , by phrases and idioms never heard out of such books . lishman Louis Bohn )

    The Letters of an Eng on Napoleon ( H . G . were worthy of being reprinted , for their remarkable vigour and eloquence , no less than for the manly protest they , make against the disgraceful spirit which has animated the coup-d ' etat . Speculation is busy as to the authorship of these Letters , and all sorts of impossible names are suggested ; for the benefit of future inquirers anxious to establish the identity of the modern Junius , we will make one remark . The writer is either a Frenchman , or a man who lias lived so long in France , and amid French ideas , that his style ( otherwise so brilliant ) is , so to speak , impregnated with Gallicisms . From the first letter we select these : speaking ot the Republican party , he says , " France will always have to count with it , " which is not ¦ Rntrlish . Ae-ain . he savs , " They consigned the primary teachers to absolute

    beggary " meaning teacherg in the grammar schools—icoles prvmaires Louis Napoleon he calls " the proscribed of the Monarchy—the recalled of the Republic ; Uo had given , indeed , feio gages to order ; " and Napoleon's instruments , " reokless men , of as desperate fortunes as those of the Elysce itself . " These , and hundreds of similar phrases , read like translations from tho French ; but the following is not only French in expression , it is intensely French in thought : " The logic of crime is retribution . " We cannot close this hasty notice , however , without giving the reador a specimen , which may be placed beside almost any passage , in Junius : —

    " If this man's reign is destined to continue , even for a brief duration , the world will witness the most heterogeneous jumble of despotism and of demagogy , of socialism and corruption , that history has ever clironioled-The bribory of Walpolo , the theories of labour of Louis Blanc , tho stockjobbing of the worst days of Louis Philippe , the ferocity of Alva , th . e deportations of tho Czar , the razzias of Algeria , will all meet in ono marvel * Fous system of anarchy , that will bo called Imperial Government . Its great aim and object arc to gag the country ami to ' rig' the market ; and under this patent of tranquillity and order Franco will bo one vast military hell , with Louis Napoleon for its croupier . "

    Armours I-Iiio And Acts In Hungary. My T...

    armours i-iiio and acts in Hungary . My TAfu and Acts in Hungary , i » - lho Yoara 1 H-48 and 1 H 4 . D . By Arthur OJorgoi Two vols . * ' Uoguo . A Refutation of some of the ' Principal Misstafoments in , Gorge ? s " X / ife and Acts . " By Ciuorgo Kmt > Ly , Into Goncral in tho Hungarian Army ol Indopondonco . OuhIl ( luto Oilpin ) .

    [ CONCLUDING ARTIC 1-K . |* In tho two previous notioen of Gorgei'n book wo have traced the remarkable career of its author from Szolnok to tSehwcchaf » from that disastrous day to Lho retreat upon Ofon , and from tjieime acrosa the Danube to Waizen . Here wo found him issuing a proclamation to his troops of a pharactcr hostile to that national government lowhich he owed allegiance , and setting up distinctly , under tho cover of legality >^ d patriotism , the standard of personal ambition as tho bams of a military party . From Waizen we tracked him through tho defies of the mountain towns , and descending thence into the southern counties . Wo left him ? ' despairing , on tho threshold of a reckoning with lho pant , " while tho dashing bravery of Guyon was forcing the Uranyis / ko pass alono , with a more handful of men ! At this juncture , the perception of dangers uoar at hand had put hopo to flight in the heart of ( jlorgoi , and ho stood self-reliant in < lenpair . I ? e boo Leader , Nos . 138 and 140 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 25, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25121852/page/17/