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Autobiography of Jonathan Romer. Edited by W. S. MAYO, M. D. New York: George P. Putnam, 155 Broadway; London: David Bogue, 86 Fleet street.

This book is full of spirit, life and excitement, and its interest never for a moment flags. The author is at home on the ocean, in the wilderness, on the vast desert. Kaloolah is an exquisite patriot, and the account of her growing love for Romer is delightfully and truly told. Every one will read it, but we cannot refrain from giving one specimen of our author's happy style. While Romer is at school a "revival of religion" takes place in the village, and the temporary madness extends itself to the teachers in the seminary; the school-room is deserted. Romer says, "At this time most of my hours were spent in the woods, either fishing, reading, or perchance dreaming. Often stretched at length upon the sunny bank of the most beautiful trout-stream in the world, or seated upon some prostrate giant of the forest, I have turned with shuddering and loathing from the sight and sounds of the distant village, and have felt borne to my innermost soul the conviction that cant and rant are utterly inconsistent with the true worship of God. How soft, and low, and calm, yet deep and full of meaning and power, are the hymns sung to His praise in the great temple of Nature. How varied too! How infinitely expressive! Listen to the hot sunbeams striking upon the thick pendent foliage, to the soft sighing of the million leaves, as, disturbed by the fitful breeze, they twist and wriggle themselves back to stillness and rest. Listen to the low hum of the lazy insects; to the hesitating twitter of the sleepy birds, or to the occasional sullen, sluggish plash trout, who has been lured from his siesta by the temptation of a careless fly. The blended whole makes music-low, melancholy musicthe most saddening music-it speaks of life, health, vigor; but of life, health, vigor, doomed to decay. It is prophetic in its tones; the deepest well-springs of the soul are stirred, gently, sadly, but not unpleasantly, as the foreboding notes rise, and swell, and fall. Anon the tempest comes, the majestic clouds speak to each other and to earth in the deep voices of the pealing thunder; the sturdy woods reecho, and prolong the crashing sounds; the wind sweeps through the foliage with a hollow rushing, as if a myriad viewless spirits were flapping their pinions and careering before it -the big drops fall with leaden sound upon the leaves. Does not the whole make the wildest, sublimest harmony? There is nothing dismal or gloomy in it; it is sternly joyous; it speaks of power, of might; but it speaks too in solemn and majestic tones-no ranting or canting-of a power above, and beyond mere

of

and enjoy it! Q Quail not! Bare your brow to the storm-look with a steady eye upon the lightning's flash-listen to the awful chorus, and feel alike the infinity of God and the greatness of the soul. The storm has passed-the moistened foliage rustles in the breeze, but with a different tone-a tone of pure gladness; the insects beat the air with their tiny wings to a more joyful measure; the birds sing freely, blithely; the trout springs actively from the placid lake, and dashes the sparkling circles with a sound of merriment and glee. The harmony is of Nature revived, restored. It speaks of hope and confidence-it presages immortality. But how easy, natural and quiet! Ah, in all that infinite variety of praise, and prayer, and thanksgiving, you can discover nothing like rant or cant !"

Leonard Scott & Co., 79 Fulton street, New York, have reprinted the London Quarterly, the Edinburgh and Westminster Reviews, and Blackwood's Magazine. They contain much interesting and instructive reading, and are published at exceedingly low rates. The London Quarterly has some excellent remarks on Macaulay's History of England, written in a fair tone and spirit. The reviewer thinks, "There is hardly a page that does not contain something objectionable either in substance or in color; and the whole of the brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding, bad faith. It makes the facts of English history as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the bitterest of his reviews. .... He does not take the slightest notice of Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Mr. Macaulay deals with history, evidently, as we think, in imitation of the novelists-his first object being always picturesque effect-his constant endeavor to give from all the repositories of gossip that have reached us a kind of circumstantial reality to his incidents, and a sort of dramatic life to his personages.. .. He paints every thing that looks like a Tory in the blackest colors.... Mr. Macaulay has almost realized the work that Alexander Chalmers' playful imagination had fancied, a Biographia Flagitiosa, or, The Lives of Eminent Scoundrels. We protest against this species of carnival history; no more like the reality than the Eglintoun Tournament or the Costume Quadrilles of Buckingham Palace; and we deplore the squandering of so much melo-dramatic talent on a subject which we have The Hill Difficulty, and some Experiences of Life in the Plains of Ease, with other Miscellanies. By GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D. New York: John Wiley, 161 Broadway.

There appears to us to be much affectation in the title of this volume. In an article on the life and writings of John Foster, Mr. Cheever praises and admires Foster for his child-like simplicity, Christian humility, nobleness of feeling, and intense hatred of oppression, but notwithstanding these glorious virtues, because Foster did not believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment, he is called by Mr. Cheever an intellectual, but half-enlightened pagan. Did Mr. Foster believe in infant damnation? Certainly not; yet this one of the doctrines of Calvinism. But what minister dare preach it now? Every mother, especially any of them who had lost children, could they for a moment think that the little cherubs whose rosy mouths they had kissed, whose heads had reposed on their bosom, whose little confiding hands had been pressed in theirs, whose first artless words they had listened tocould they for a moment think that such angelic natures had descended to the "bottomless pit," such a doctrine would fall powerless on their ears; with faces turned heavenward, and eyes filled with tears, they would rejoice that of such is the kingdom of heaven. With Mr. Cheever the thought of eternal punishment seems to be delightful, it nestles in his brain and heart, he turns over the words in his mouth as a sweet morsel, it is with him "the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues," and religion likewise.

Some of the descriptive and meditative pieces in this volume are pleasantly written. Beau

tifully does Mr. Cheever exclaim, "What would not the world give for a collection of Milton's private correspondence! The only letters we have are letters of state, grand letters, letters written with the eye of the world over the shoulder of the writer. But of epistolary correspondence, of that which is a careless, hasty record of a man's familiar thoughts and feelings, as they come and go in the current of every day's existence, we have nothing

"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free.
So didst thou travel on life's common way."

We hear the roar of the sea; the voice, in English literature, is as that of Niagara among waters. We behold, too, the perpetual shining of the star, but there is a sense of apartness, a majesty of loneliness about it. The roar of the ocean is grand, but it is pleasant sometimes to hear the gurgle of the running brooks among forest leaves, when "inland far we be." And such a music is in the minor poems of Milton, but we have no familiar letters.

The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the younger. BY CHARLES DICKENS. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. No. 1. New York: John Wiley, 161 Broadway.

This edition is reprinted from proof-sheets received by special arrangement from the London publishers. This work bids fair to be as interesting as any that has as yet issued from the fertile brain of Mr. Dickens. The illustrations are excellent, and the book is handsomely printed. There is an old woman in the work whose favorite word is "meandering." She boasts that she has never been out on the water, and expresses her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others who had the presumption to go "meandering" about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned with greater emphasis, and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, "Let us have no meandering." There is another lady who, when speaking of the kindness of her departed husband, and that they had always lived happily together, says: "I am sure we never had a word of difference except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines."

The Hill Difficulty, and some Experiences of Life in the Plains of Ease, with other Miscellanies. By GEORGE B. CHEEVER, D.D. New York: John Wiley, 161 Broadway.

There appears to us to be much affectation in the title of this volume. In an article on the life and writings of John Foster, Mr. Cheever praises and admires Foster for his child-like simplicity, Christian humility, nobleness of feeling, and intense hatred of oppression, but notwithstanding these glorious virtues, because Foster did not believe in the doctrine of eternal punishment, he is called by Mr. Cheever an intellectual, but half-enlightened pagan. Did Mr. Foster believe in infant damnation? Certainly not; yet this one of the doctrines of Calvinism. But what minister dare preach it now? Every mother, especially any of them who had lost children, could they for a moment think that the little cherubs whose rosy mouths they had kissed, whose heads had reposed on their bosom, whose little confiding hands had been pressed in theirs, whose first artless words they had listened tocould they for a moment think that such angelic natures had descended to the "bottomless pit," such a doctrine would fall powerless on their ears; with faces turned heavenward, and eyes filled with tears, they would rejoice that of such is the kingdom of heaven. With Mr. Cheever the thought of eternal punishment seems to be delightful, it nestles in his brain and heart, he turns over the words in his mouth as a sweet morsel, it is with him "the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues," and religion likewise.

Some of the descriptive and meditative pieces in this volume are pleasantly written. Beau

tifully does Mr. Cheever exclaim, "What would not the world give for a collection of Milton's private correspondence! The only letters we have are letters of state, grand letters, letters written with the eye of the world over the shoulder of the writer. But of epistolary correspondence, of that which is a careless, hasty record of a man's familiar thoughts and feelings, as they come and go in the current of every day's existence, we have nothing

"Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free.
So didst thou travel on life's common way."

We hear the roar of the sea; the voice, in English literature, is as that of Niagara among waters. We behold, too, the perpetual shining of the star, but there is a sense of apartness, a majesty of loneliness about it. The roar of the ocean is grand, but it is pleasant sometimes to hear the gurgle of the running brooks among forest leaves, when "inland far we be." And such a music is in the minor poems of Milton, but we have no familiar letters.

The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the younger. By CHARLES DICKENS. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. No. 1. New York: John Wiley, 161 Broadway.

This edition is reprinted from proof-sheets received by special arrangement from the London publishers. This work bids fair to be as interesting as any that has as yet issued from the fertile brain of Mr. Dickens. The illustrations are excellent, and the book is handsomely printed. There is an old woman in the work whose favorite word is "meandering." She boasts that she has never been out on the water, and expresses her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others who had the presumption to go "meandering" about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned with greater emphasis, and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, "Let us have no meandering." There is another lady who, when speaking of the kindness of her departed husband, and that they had always lived happily together, says: "I am sure we never had a word of difference except when Mr. Copperfield objected to my threes and fives being too much like each other, or to my putting curly tails to my sevens and nines."