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    Thebe is one thing consolatory to the literary mind in this strange time of ours—viz ., that if great books are rare , great prices are given for books not at all great . Literature never was so well paid . Sardonic observers might ; call to mind that when great worlcs were written , large sums were not paid for them , and also that now , when the Stage is at its lowest ebb , the salaries of actors are yearly becoming more extravagant . But we leave the sardonic to their sneers . Although believing that great works

    are written from higher motives than large prices , and that no price can purchase them , we are happy to observe that since money is paid for Literature , the price is becoming more considerable . Even the eminent Jones will think well of Literature when it keeps its carriage ; and although Literature may not be solicitous of Jones ' s esteem , yet since Literary Men mingle with the Joneses , marry their daughters , eat of their dinners , and generally recognise their existence , the respect is not without its value .

    Our readers have heard of Auerbach , and read , probably , his pleasant tales descriptive of Life in the Black Forest ; yet with the utmost wish to think well of these Dorfgeschichten ( a third volume whereof has just appeared ) , one cannot regard them as any very considerable dowry bestowed upon the world . They are more remarkable in German literature than they would be in our own ; and Auerbach ' s reputation in Germany has reached such a height , that he has been enabled to sell a ten years' copyright of all his existing works for 16 , 000 gulden , ( something like 1600 ? . ) As the radical Stout says in Bulweb ' s comedy , — " I ' ve a "brother at home would do it for half the money !"

    While touching on the subject of German Literature , we may mention that Fanny Sewald has anew novel in the press ; Karl . Gutzkow has just completed a play—Antonio da Perez—founded on the life of that splendid adventurer to whom Mignet has recently devoted a very interesting volume . The play excites great admiration among Gutzkow ' s Dresden friends . The Princess of Holstein , as we hear , has also written another novel—Friihling , Sommer , Herbst , Winter . To say that we personally feel any interest in this novel , or in German belles lettres generally , would be to extend politeness into hypoerisy j but there may be among our readers those who will care to hear of such things .

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    The great problem of how the Inorganic passes into the Organic—a fact which the nourishment and growth of every vegetable illustrates—has long occupied speculative minds . Indeed , it is a problem which will force itself on the attention . While many are actively engaged in tracing out the transition phases between invertebrate Aid vertebrate animals , reducing the whole of organic life to one principle , named Unity of Composition by Geoffroy St . Hilaire , others are as active speculating on the possible transition phases between what is called inorganic and organic matter .

    Crystals have naturally been supposed to conceal the first beginnings of the phase named organic , because in crystals we first meet with determinate form as a constituent element . The matter named inorganic has no determinate form ; but a crystal is matter arranged in a particular and essential form . The differences , however , between the highest form of crystal and the lowest form of organic life known—a simple reproductive cell—are so manifold and striking , that the attempt to make crystals the bridge over which inorganic matter passes into the organic , is almost universally regarded as futile .

    Speculation will not settle the matter . We need more data . We need something of the nature of those experiments which have led M . Bit am e , of Tours , to the < liscovery of what he teims the utricular condition of minerals . A report of these has recently been submitted to the Academy of Sciences , and the discovery is adopted . We will endeavour in a few words to explain it . And first let it be recalled to mind , that the capital distinction between the mineral or crystal and the organic cell is this : the one grows only by accretion , by juxtaposition—the other by

    reproduction : the one is fixed in its unchangeable form—the other undergoes a scries of transformations . Now , M . Brame ' s discovery shows that previously to crystallization , certain bodies assume an embryonic cellular condition , the outgrowth and consequence of which is a crystal ; and what is still more remarkable in this cellular condition , not only has the microscopic cell an enveloping membrane inclosing within it soft semitransparent matter containing vapour , which when condensed forms crystals , ( thus furnishing both " cell-membrane" and " cell-contents , " ) but . these very cells assume an arrangement very analogous to that of organic tissues !

    The discovery to which wo make allusion is one of immense importance , but we concur with M . Dukrbbnoy , the rapporteur to the Academy , in doubting whether it reveals the passage from the inorganic to the organic . The darkness there is as great as ever . All that M . Buamk ' h discovery enlightens is the nature of crystals . It leads us to regard the crystal not as an organic beginning , but as the consequence of an organic beginning ; and organic life being incessant change , we may define crystallization to be arrested life /

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    BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The Giants of JPatagonia . Captain Bourne ' a Account of hi * Captivity amongst the Extraordinary Savages of Patagonia . Ingram , Cooke , and Co . The Universal Library . No . XIII . , „ Ingram , Cooke , and Co . A Visit to Mexico , by the West India Islands , Yucatan , and United States ; with Observation and Adventures on the Way . By W . P . Robertson . 2 vols . Sunpkin , Marshall , and Co . Cyrilla . A Tale . By the Baroness Tautphoeus . 3 vols . Richard Bentley . Money . Sow to Get , how to Keep , and how to Use it . A Guide to Fortune . . Ingram , Cooke , and Co . The Elegies ofPropertius , with English Notes . By F . A . Paley . J . W . Parker . Money . How to Get , Save , Spend , Give , Lend , and Bequeath it ; being a Practical Treatise on Business . By E . T . Frudley . m n Partridge and Oakey . Recollections of a Three Tears' Residence in China . By W . T . Power . . R . Bentley . Common-sense Tracts . Frank Vansittart ; or , the Model Schoolboys . By Catherine Sinclair . K . Bentley . The Christian Examiner . John'Chapman . Robert Owen ' s Rational Quarterly Review . J' ™ ™ " ' The Days of Battle : or , Quartre Bras and Waterloo . By an Englishwoman . H . G . Bonn . Adventures of Sir James Brooke , K . C . B ., Rajah of Sarawak . By Gk Foggo . E . Wilson . Debate in the House of Commons on the Gradual Extinction of the National Debt , and on the true Principles of a Property and Income-tax . James Bidgway . The Parlour Library . Time , the Avenger . Simms and M'lntyre . The Temple of Education ; being Results of the Strivings of a Teacher after the T ™ e J ? ea L ? x Practice of Education . By T . E . Poynting . R . Theobald . Diogenes . Part IV . , ^ ? > ,, Brot ?^* Mazzini Judged by Himself and his Countrymen . By J . De Breval . Vizetelly and Co . Life among the Giants ; or , the Captive in Patagonia : a Personal Narrative . By B . F . JJourne . The Alps , Switzerland , Savoy , and Lombardy . By the Rev . C . Williams . J . Cassell . Illustrated Magazine of Art . John Cassell . The National Miscellany . No . I . J . H . Parker . History of Scotland from the Revolution to the Extinction of the Last Jacobite Insurrection . By J . H . Burton . 2 vols . Longman and Co . Biographical Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . Tait ' s Edinburgh Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . Peace or War—The Storm , the Flood , and the Whirlwind . A Letter to Richard Cobden , Esq ., M . P . By Epsilon . Partridge and Oakey . The Home Circle . T , W . B . Johnson . The British Quarterly Review . Jackson andWalford .

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    PUBLICATIONS AND RE PUBLICATIONS . One may say of reviewing the multifarious productions of " the season , " what Dr . Johnson says of a woman ' s preaching , " Sir , it is like a dog walking on its hind legs ; the thing cannot be done well , but you wonder that it is done at all . " And many indeed are the expressions of wonderment , " How we manage to get through the books . " The thing cannot be done well ; all we can do is to select for purposes of doctrine or amusement , such works as we fancy will more especially interest our public , and in rapid summaries indicate the nature and the value of the rest , when indeed they are of sufficient importance to claim even so much . We beg readers and writers , therefore , to understand that no shadow of disrespect is thrown by this fact of briefer notice . It is simply impossible to review all , or even one third , of the new books ; we , therefore , only select such as will serve some purpose of instruction , doctrine , or amusement , under the responsibility of estranging our readers if we select without discernment of their wants .

    As an example take the first book on ourlist , Mr . Edward Miall ' s Bases of Belief XArthur Hall and Co . ) , a work the excellence and importance of which would demand from us two or even three articles , had we not lately troubled the reader with so unusual an amount of theology as to make it a closed subject for some time to come . Mr . Miall's views are widely opposed to our own , and we could not in justice to him refrain from , a lengthened examination , while in justice to our public we must refrain from a restatement of opinions already stated and illustrated over and over again in this journal . Let us , then , briefly mention that Mr . Miall has published such a book , in which he undertakes an " examination of Christianity as a divine revelation , by the light of recognised facts and principles . " It is written with the power and the piety every ono will expect from its remarkable author , but , like all the orthodox works published of late , it evades the great and fundamental difficulty . It does not meet the sceptic , it only confirms the believer .

    Again , what claim on our space can " another , yet another ' of the Uncle Tomitudes have to the exclusion of works less known P Here is a gaudy , gilt , and crimson edition , published by Adam and Charles Black , with heaps of illustrations by Phiz , Gilbert , and M . W . Soars , which to those who want an illustrated edition may bo of some interest , but the fact is all our readers can desire to know . Then The Key to Uncle Tom ' s Cabin ( Clarke , Beeton , and Co . ) scarcely needs even recognition of its existence , so universally is it known .

    The Diary and lloures of the Lady Adolie , a faythfulle Childe , 1552 . ( Addey ami Co . ) , would demand a fuller notice , were it not one of the many imitations of Lady Willoughbys Diary , which every season now brings forth . They are not literary food , but the jellies and whipped creams meant for evening parties . They lie on the drawing-room table , and excite tho curiosity of young ladies , who believe the antique spelling is genuine antique . Lady Adolie is not a book to criticise . It is very handsomely got up in tho antique style , and so far fullila its oflice as a book for the drawing-room table .

    Men of the Time , or Sketches of Liviva Notables ( I ) . Uogue ) , might bo a serviceable and agreeable volume , it' compiled by a careful and competent hand ; it is , however , a catchpenny affair , with tho ambitious pretence of being a muster-roll of " tho people who take tho lead in doing tho work of tho world in literature , politics , in art , in science . We have only dipped into its contents , and yot wo noted examples of ignorance and carelessness enough to warn us from a closer intimacy . fhus tho groat American novelist Hawthorne has a few linos devoted to him , but his namo is uniformly mis-spelled by the biographer . Alexandra Dumas ,

    who has published fifteen volumes of autobiography , has an article dovoted to him , in which there is not n date nor a fact given , but only a passage about him taken from The British Quarterly Review , evon that source being concealed under tho vague phrase , " a recent writer ; " wo are not oven told when ho was born , " about 1800 " being tho instructive remark which is made to answer all biographical purposes . Moreover , while many writers wholly obscure , and recognized as " leading in tho work of tho world" onl y in tho small coteries to which they belong , aro elevated to historical importance , tho onuBsioiiH are ludicrous , impl y ing as they do the undisturbed ignoranco of tho compiler . Will it be credited that tho names of such men w Who well , Sedgowick , Sir "William Hamil-

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    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and jJolice of literature . They do not . . ¦ ¦ xnakelawa—they interpret and try to enforceihem . —Edinburgh Review .

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    April 30 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 427

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 30, 1853, page 427, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1984/page/19/