the edge of the desert, in the starlight before the dawn.

NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI. New York. Harper & It was only a wailing voice in the air."

Brothers: 82 Cliff Street. 1851.

The moons of three months had waxed and waned since
they left Cairo. Winds never blew for that unhappy boat,
currents were always adverse-illness and inability seized
the crew. Landing at lonely towns the dragoman sold
him his own provisions, previously sent ashore for the pur-
pose, at an admirable advance. Gradually he was be-
coming the Ancient Mariner of the Nile. He must have
grown grisly I am sure that he was sad."
"Nile Notes" is for sale by Morris & Brother.

TWICE TOLD TALES. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. In
Two Volumes. A New Edition. Boston: Ticknor,
Reed, and Fields. 1851.

"But most melancholy was the case of a Howadji, Whatever may be her relative position in other branches whom we found wandering in the remote regions of the of literature, America undoubtedly bears the palm of late Nile. He was a kind of flying Dutchman, always gliding years, from all Europe, in her books of Travels. We about in a barque haunted by a dragoman and a Reis, or question if the produce of any age or nation in this de-a captain, who would not suffer him to arrive anywhere. partment of letters can equal the long series of delightful narratives of which "Typee" is the first, and the work whose title is given above the last. Typee was a new chapter in book-making. Nothing like its poetic reality had ever before issued from travelled brains, and it attract ed universal attention here and in Europe, more for this novelty even, than for its striking merit. For ages travellers had been writing books which contained facts, observations, reflections, opinions,-everything but the picturesque. The volumes of English travellers were filled with wearying commonplaces, tiresome " "impressions," and personal details which their authors vainly fancied would interest the public equally with themselves. Travelwriting was becoming the common resort of the commonest minds, who published their volumes of tedious narratives solely as some offset to the expenses of the journey. "Typee" was in direct contrast to all this. In it were marvellous adventures, strange lands, a wild people, and all the gorgeous natural wealth of those remote "ultimate dim Thules," delineated with the pen of a master. The interest excited by the book was kept up by "Omoo" and other works from the same hand, and then followed in picturesque succession, "Los Gringos," "Kaloolah," and a host of sparkling volumes, not one of them inferior to “Eöthen," and in many particulars far superior to that much be-praised performance. Thus has America surpassed beyond all comparison the nation which "never read an American book," and we may say with equal truth, that in spite of MM. Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Dumas, who have so pleasantly recorded their experiences, she has also excelled the most brilliant writers of France.

не

"Nile Notes, by a Howadji," (traveller that is to say,) is the last of these volumes up to he present time, and we have lingered over its dreamy poetic pages for many pleasant hours, with all the "splendor and havoc of the East" before us. The style of the notes is to the last degree poetical, and some outrageous affectations apart, in many places exceedingly striking. The shores of the Nile bathed in the "creamy sunlight" of the East, the wonders of Thebes, Memphis and Memnon, the Dancinggirls, Dragomen. Hadji—all are warm and distinct in the mind's eye as they could be drawn in a painting to the outward vision. The work is evidently from the pen of one who has dreamt from his childhood of this glorious domain of ancient wonders, and Egypt to his enamored eye was not the squalid, worn out land it really is, but an enchanted region which none but poets could rightly appreciate. The "Howadji" read up for his eastern tour in the pages of Alfred Tennyson. Vide Nile Notes passim. Some passages of the "Notes" are, we fancy, a little too warmly colored for that Gotham, to whose elegant "Astor" and virtuous "Wall street," the author, with the heart of a true cockney, ever turns; but many others are free from this blemish and strike us as very forcible. We subjoin a few sentences taken entirely at random.

"Abon Hassan sat at the city gate, and I saw Haroun Alraschid quietly coming up in that disguise of a Moussoul merchant. I could not but wink at Abon, for I knew him so long ago in the Arabian Nights. But he rather stared than saluted as friends may in a masquerade."

"Once I heard the Muezzin cry from a little village on

Hawthorne is one of our peculiar favorites, among the New England men of letters, and perhaps for the reason that his literary fame has not been acquired by that system of friendly puffery to which most of these writers are indebted for their position. He has had no band of claquers to cry his writings into favor, but they have made their way by virtue of their own intrinsic merits. His reputation is therefore legitimate, and is not likely to be disturbed. We are glad to see this new edition of Twice Told Tales in the choice typography of Ticknor & Co. It is embellished with a very handsome portrait of the author, and contains a Preface, which is quite as good as any thing in either of the volumes, wherein the history of the popularity (or want of popularity, as Mr. Hawthorne thinks it) of the sketches, is pleasantly narrated. The quiet good humor, with which our author discusses his chances of permanent fame, and the altogether disinterested point of view from which he looks at himself, remind us of De Quincey.

These volumes are for sale by Morris & Brother.

THE CITY OF THE SILENT; A Poem. By W. Gilmore
Simms. Delivered at the Consecration of Magnolia
Cemetery. November 19th, 1850. Charleston: Walker
& James, Publishers. 1850.

A most graceful poem, worthy in all respects of Mr. Simms, and full of fine and effective passages. We should like to quote some of these, but our narrow limits forbid, and we can only therefore unite in the general commendation which the poem has called forth, without permitting the reader of our remarks to judge for himself. There are, perhaps, some parts of the poem which show haste in its preparation, but productions of this sort are most frequently written against time, and we should not therefore expect the same finish in them that we look for in an epic. On the whole, we think a performance, purely occasional, of more merit than “The City of the Silent" has rarely appeared.

Messrs. Nash & Woodhouse, 139 Main street have sent us the Foreign Reviews for the last quarter, and Blackwood's Magazine for March. The North British contains two charming biographical sketches-one of Philip Doddridge, from the same pen evidently with the article on Simeon, and the other of young Hallam, the subject of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." The other Reviews are fully up to their ancient fame, and Blackwood contains a delightful instalment of "My Novel."

ENGLISH REPORTS

IN LAW AND EQUITY:

PROPOSALS

BY LITTLE & BROWN,

LAW BOOKSELLERS, 112 WASHINGTON STREET, Boston,

FOR PUBLISHING BY SUBSCRIPTION

A NEW SERIES OF LAW AND EQUITY REPORTS.

The want of some system by which the decisions and judicial opinions of the several Courts of Law and Equity in England can be more promptly and cheaply furnished to the legal profession in this country, has long been seriously felt and acknowledged. To meet a similar want in England, the "LAW JOURNAL REPORTS," and "THE JURIST," which, together, report decisions in in all the Courts in Law and Equity, within a few weeks after their delivery, were commenced a number of years since, and have met with the universal approbation of the legal profes sion. Their high cost, however, has hitherto prevented their general circulation in this country, and their merits are as yet but little known among us.

The subscribers propose to republish these reports IN FULL, as fast as they appear in England and can be receiv ed here. They will contain reports of cases decided in the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the several Courts of Equity, the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer and Exchequer Chamber, the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts, the Court of Bankruptcy, including, also, the Election Cases, the Crown Cases Reserved, and the Railway and Canal Cases.

These reports will be published in monthly numbers or parts, commencing with the decisions of Michaelmas (November) Term, 1850, and will be carefully edited by a member of the bar, with notes and references to analogous. American decisions. The first number will appear in a few days.

Each number will consist of over Three hundred pages closely printed octavo, on the best paper, and in clear, fair type, and will contain a table of cases, and a full table of contents, thus forming a complete volume by itself, as well as a part of an entire series. Every alternate or second number will be paged consecutively from the number immediately preceding, and will contain a table of cases, and of contents to both, and thus form, every two months, a complete volume, ready for binding, of over six hundred pages. In each volume the cases of the several Courts will be found arranged together, and in point of style and typographical execution, this series will be fully equal to the best reports of England or this country.

It is designed to make this a PERMANENT PUBLICATION, and thus establish a new series of ENGLISH LAW AND EQUITY REPORTS, which shall, in all respects, be far in advance of any other reprint of English Reports in this coun try, and which shall furnish to the American lawyer the decisions of Westminster Hall, nearly two years before they could otherwise be obtained, and long before the publication of the contemporaneous decisions of most of our own tribunals.

The profession may be assured that this series will be the most complete of any reports now published. A careful examination of the Jurist and Law Journal, for a series of years, discloses the fact that many important cases are here reported which are not found in the contemporaneous reports of Meeson and Welsby, Manning, Granger & Scott, Adolphus & Ellis, and other reporters; and the Law Journal alone, during the first seven years of its existence, published over 1,000 cases not then elsewhere reported. This publication will include all the future decisions of the Law and Equity Courts hereafter contained in the several series of English Reports.

The price of this publication, forming six volumes octavo, will be $10 a year, payable in advance, or the six volumes, handsomely and uniformly bound in law sheep, $12.

Each monthly part will be sold separately, if desired, at $1 each.

As to the character of the reports of the "Law Journal” and “The Jurist," but little need be said. They were established to furnish the profession with the actual decision of causes, and the reasoning of the Court thereupon. with a clear, concise, and sufficient abstract of the facts, without the prolix arguments of counsel usually found in the late English Reports. They are not encumbered with Nisi Prius decisions, but contain only those cases argued and decided in banc, and upon mature consideration. In England these Reports are regarded as of high authority, and are cited with approbation and respect in the English Courts, and by their most eminent elementary writers. They are regularly digested and inserted in the Annual Digests of Harrison, and others, and have received the express sanction of distinguished English Judges. They are cited with confidence, and as authority, in the judicial opinions of Judge Story, and other eminent American Judges, and in the writings of Greenleaf, Kent, Angell, Phillips, Chitty, and others; and, for accuracy, clearness, and brevity are believed to be equal to any English Reports now published. The publishers feel confident that the low price of this series, combined with the promptness and regularity with which the latest decisions will here be offered to the profession, cannot fail to recommend it as a useful and desirable publication.

Orders addressed to the subscribers, No. 112 Washington Street, Boston, Mass., or to any of their Agents. LITTLE & BROWN.

BOSTON, March, 1851.

AGENTS.

THIS WORK IS PUBLISHED IN MONTHLY NUMBERS AVERAGING SIXTY-FOUR PAGES EACH, AT FIVE

DOLLARS, PER ANNUM, INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE.

RICHMOND, VA.

MACFARLANE & FERGUSSON.