time ago, a wretched critique upon that poem in "Macphail's Magazine," which passed over that beautiful creation loathsome and innocuous as a snail over a rosebud. Worst of all, it was written by a man who has in him a nobler element than venom, and a higher insight than malice. From Mary Howitt's we repaired to Leigh Hunt's. We found him rather poorly in health and spirits, but with the old genial nature shining out through dullness and decay. We talked much of religion. He told us that Hazlitt once confessed to him that he had never thought on that subject at all. Hunt has, and, we think, is beginning to think rightly. He started when we said that the difference between Shelley and Christianity was, that while the one said, "Love is God," the other inverted it into "God is love." He owned that the remark was just. Of Shelley he spoke with much tenderness. When he was expelled from Oxford, he ran away to Southey, who did not and who could not understand him. It was leaping from the frying-pan into the fire. Coleridge heard of it, and asked, "Why did he not come to me?" Would to God he had at that crisis found a Christian teacher somewhat wiser than the Oxford conclave of learned fools, and at what Christian teacher's feet could Shelley have sat with such advantage as at the feet of that " mighty poet and subtle-souled psychologist," whom he afterwards commemorated, but whom he never met? Hunt told us, too, that Shelley was justified by the laws of his college in propounding his extraordinary theses. The choice of the subject only was outrageous an outrage which was soon, cruelly, and long revenged. tenderer. His errors seem to him the blunders of some glorious child, or say rather the mistakes of some superior being shot athwart the sphere of earth, but never fully naturalized to its cold, meagre climate, its hollow customs, and its ill-defined laws. He told us that Irving, upon his death-bed, regretted bitterly that he had not seen and consulted, and followed his advice more frequently. This is as yet Carlyle's highest praise. That a being like Edward Irving, always detained on earth by a tie so slender-on the brink of eternity, and in the almost vision of that face and form which had so long haunted his dreams, should pause and give a smile so cordial, and a wave of the hand so gracious, to one who, "according to the way which men call heresy, was worshipping the God of his fathers"-is equal to an inscription upon a world-statue to one of the greatest heroes as well as hero-worshippers in our time. Carlyle's invective sometimes seems the foul spittle of some angry god. It is a wild lashing rain from above, like Isaiah in his wrath. And what a torrent he did pour upon the head of Henry Brougham, "who had changed his soul into a hurdy-gurdy fit for any tune," and all whose faculties had run to" tongue!" In such talk the evening wore away, and we were compelled reluctantly to leave. The next day we met at breakfast, in the house of the amiable and admirable John Young, of Albion Chapel, with a very remarkable man, Caleb Morris, certainly one of the acutest as well as pleasantest ministers we ever encountered. Dr. Morrison, editor of the "Evangelical Magazine," we had met for a few minutes before, and liked him so much as keenly to regret that we did not see him at full length. In the evening we repaired to Thomas Carlyle's. We expected to have had the In the evening, after enjoying the kind company of Thomas Binney, who had en- hospitalities of the celebrated Alexander gaged to go along with us. Indeed, we had Fletcher, we lectured in his chapel on the smiled for weeks at the thought of a Scot-"Christian Bearings of Astronomy." At the tish parson forming the connecting link between the most popular preacher and the most powerful writer in London. But, unfortunately, he was prevented. We went however, alone, and enjoyed the visit as keenly as before. Carlyle's talk was not, to be sure, "of bullocks.' It was principally concerning three men that he spoke-Chalmers, Irving, and Brougham. The broad benignity, the catholicity, the rugged heaven which Chalmers carried about with him in his face and nature, are very dear to Carlyle. He is to him the last of the Christians. Toward Irving his feelings are yet warmer and close we were much gratified by the sight of the dear old Dr. Leifchild, who had once visited our father in Comrie, and who fondly imagined (nor did we disturb the dream) that we were (years before our birth) the little boy he saw running about that lowroofed, uncarpeted, but ever dear parlor. Dr. L. is a man of a wide intellect and a warm heart. The next morning we left at half-past nine, reached Edinburgh at eleven, P.M., spent the night pleasantly with Samuel Brown, and at nine next evening found ourselves at home. NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. [It is the Editor's purpose to select from the reviews of the leading British literary authorities such passages as briefly express the writer's estimate of those works which are of interest to American readers.] The Western World; Travels in the United States in 1843-7. By ALEX. MACKAY, Esq. 3 vols. Since Mr. James Stuart's publication, we have seen nothing on America so temperate, impartial, and sensible, as this later view of that, since then, much changed and much advanced country; now containing so much general intelligence, and political and statistical information. The author is an advo cate for free trade, but his opinions do not seem to be warped in other respects by his ideas on this subject. He takes his stand at New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and other salient points, and thence surveys the commerce, politics, legislation, social system, and progress all around, from the centre as it were, to the farthest circumference of the several circles. The method is very effective, whatever difference of judgment may be formed on the arguments.-Literary Gazette. The Miscellaneous Writings of Pascal. From the new French Edition of M. P. Faugère. With Introduction and Notes by G. Pearce, Esq. Could we have more of Solomon, or old Montaigne, or Bacon, how rejoiced we should be; and it is hardly with a less cordial welcome that we greet a publication which presents us with so much that is new, in addition to the revival of much of acknowledged excellence, in the writings of Pascal. It is a book of wisdom and morality, and intellectual cultivation. 1. Letters; 2. Science; 3. Human Passion; 4, 5. Mental Training; 6. Happy Thoughts; 7. Conversations on many interesting topics; and 8, 9, 10. Religious Subjects. Such are the varied contents of this most pleasing and instructive volume, than which one more profitable for family, or social, or individual reading could scarcely be taken up for week-day or Sabbath.-Literary Gazette. Mardi; and a Voyage Thither. By Herman Melville. Author of "Typee" and "Omoo." 3 vols. On opening this strange book, the reader will be at once struck by the affectation of its style, in which are mingled many madnesses. Some pages emulate the Ercles' vein of the "Wondrous Tale of Alroy:" not a few paragraphs indicate that the author has been drinking at the well of "English bewitched," of which Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Emerson are the priests. Here and there, in the midst of a most frantic romance, occur dry little digressions, showing the magician anxious half to medicine, half to bamboozle his readers, after the manner of "The Doctor." In other passages of his voyage, where something very shrewd has been intended, we find nothing more poignant than the vapid philosophy of Mr. Fenimore Cooper's "Monikins." If this book be meant as a pleasantry, the mirth has been oddly left out if as an allegory, the key of the casket is "buried in ocean deep"-if as a romance, it fails from tediousness-if as a prose-poem, it is chargeable with puerility. Among the hundred people who will take it up, lured by their remembrances of "Typee," ninety readers will drop off at the end of the first volume; and the remaining nine will become so weary of the hero when, for the seventh time, he is assaulted by the three pursuing Duessas, who pelt him with symbolical flowers, that they will throw down his chronicle ere the end of its second is reached--with Mr. Burchell's monosyllable by way of comment.-Athenæum. Orators of the American Revolution. By E. L. Magoon. -The Orators of the American Revolution-some of them really notable men in their day, and one or two likely to be long remembered for their exciting eloquence-deserved better treatment than they have received from the hands of Mr. Magoon. What offense can any of these respectable individuals have been guilty of towards him, that he should bespatter them with such hyperbolical and unmeaning praise? The work has no value whatever. Neither in its material nor in the fashion of its workmanship do we find anything to commend. We have rarely encountered such a series of grandiose platitudes as the notes supply-even from the, in this respect, prolific source of American authorship. Criticism would be wasted on them.-Athenæum. RECENT BRITISH PUBLICATIONS. Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers. By Eliot Warburton, Esq. The first No. of Mr. Dickens's new tale, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, and Observations of David Copperfield, the Younger, of Blunder-Stone Rookery, is announced. Outlines of Astronomy. By Sir J. F. W. Hers chel. Loyola and Jesuitism. By Isaac Taylor. The Common Place Book of Robert Southey. Edited by his son-in law. Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography From articles published in the Edinburgh Review. By Rt. Hon. Sir J. Stephen. New Zealand Sketches, in Pen and Pencil. By W. Tyrone Power. Rome; or, A Tour of Many Days. By Sir George Head. English Melodies. By Charles Swain. The Apostles' School of Prophetic Interpretation. By Charles Maitland, author of the Church in the Catacombs. Hand-book of European Literature. By Mrs. Foster David Riggio, another of Ireland's celebrated Shakspeare Forgeries. Edited by G. P. R. James. Glimpses of Nature, a new work. By Alexander Von Humboldt. Translated by Col. Sabine. A History of the Sikhs. By Joseph Davey Conningham. Letters from Sierra Leone. Edited by Hon. Mrs. |