and, above all, you shall not be taught to read, but you shall enjoy the glorious privileges of the Gospel. Come, therefore, my black brother, let us rejoice together that women do not work in American fields." This is Doré with a witness. But the author chooses to philosophize in this way, and so we must needs criticise. If the poor gilding at home can thus deceive him, the reader instinctively becomes a little skeptical of his foreign criticism. But the same reader cannot fail to enjoy the spirit and humor of the book-a humor which is never forced, but genial and gushing, with an occasional strain of tender sentiment, not unlike Sterne. Had the author given his work a more narrative form, and treated his material more artistically, Doré would have been a more permanent addition to our literature of travel than it is now likely to become. -The name of HENRY T. TUCKERMAN is justly conspicuous in our literature; but by nothing has Mr. Tuckerman more justly deserved his distinction than by the volume of Essays, Biographical and Critical (Phillips, Sampson & Co.), which has just been issued in a style worthy its merits. They are what they are called-studies of character; and those who have always remarked Mr. Tuckerman's peculiar power of analysis and statement, his calm and wellbalanced discrimination, eulogistic without extravagance, and critical without bitterness, will find the present volume an enduring monument of his characteristic talent. It is a gallery of interesting portraits, thirty in number; and the subjects are chosen with a happy variety, which shows the extent and quality of the author's studies and sympathies. Indeed, everything from Mr. Tuckerman's pen has the air of fine scholarship and affectionate acquaintance with the best literature. His style is simple and transparent. It is the essay style-the manner of a man whose early loves and later approval linger with the Spectator and the London wits. But this preference by no means excludes from his appreciation the highly-colored rhetoric of other times and manners. Our author's mind is eminently judicial. His judgments are just, whatever the age or character of the subject before him. All these remarks are illustrated in the Biographical Essays, the latest, and, we think, the best of Mr. Tuckerman's books. Our readers will dis cover that they have met some of these essays before. No student of English literature will have forgotten the paper in the North American Review upon Laurence Sterne, which, appearing so soon after Thackeray's delineation of the famous sentimentalist, took a different view, with as much force and skill as Thackeray gave to his trenchant and amusing portraiture. Thackeray's object was to show, at one stroke, the peculiar significance of Sterne in English literature, which is an inherent necessity of a lecture, and of the end Thackeray had in view. But this kind of treatment creates, necessarily, an appearance of injustice. It is true, indeed; but then other things are true, also. Mr. Tuckerman's essay contemplates the particular, as well as the general, truth; and the greater detail is, therefore, a greater value. His estimate of Southey, too, is the best we know. It gives a very clear and very complete view of his life, talent, and performance. We may say the same of the papers upon Lord Jeffrey and Jenny Lind. Indeed, we have found them all singularly graphic and entertaining-for they are biographical as well as critical-the material being so wisely mingled that the attention is constantly allured and beguiled from page to page. We cannot omit to notice the tone of sincerity and modesty which pervades the work. It is hard to sketch character without flippancy. Even Macaulay is brilliantly, and Carlyle savagely, unjust. The one must sparkle, the other loves an Olympian sneer. And so of the smaller critics, according as they call one or the other master. But Mr. Tuckerman's sketches are not the less vivid because they are simple and modest. They are like an introduction to celebrities by a gentleman, and not by a chasseur or a recluse. -A book has lain upon our table for a month or two, which is not for a season but for all seasons; not only for all seasons of the year, but for all moods of the mind. Selections from books are here sometimes called a dangerous experiment, but more and more a necessary one. "Come, now, show me your best pictures," says the connoisseur to the art-collector, in Goethe's "Essays upon Art." And who, if he wished to see something peculiarly characteristic of Turner, and had but a day in London, would not willingly confide himself to Ruskin, and look at what that critic desig- ought we to trust ourselves to say so long a word as immortality? Mr. JoSIAH QUINCY, the author of "Lyteria," grandson, as we learn, of the old man eloquent, has written Charicles (Ticknor & Fields). The subject is classical. It concerns the death of Tiberius, and the title of the poem is the name of the physician. This is unfortunate; for Becker's "Charicles" has given the name another kind of familiarity. This drama is a good academic exercise, but not much of a poem. Talfourd's "Ion" was the best specimen of this style of performance, and that is poor enough. Talfourd and Mr. Quincy are modern men-why should they write upon ancient subjects, in an ancient way, except to show how skillfully they can do it? If you have strength in your arms, it is a pity to expend it upon climbing poles, with nothing at the top. -André, a tragedy in five acts, by W. W. LORD (Charles Scribner), is a very different drama, both in topic and treatment, from Mr. Quincy's. It was the great misfortune of Mr. Lord, upon his first essay, several years since, to be prematurely praised. Before his book of poems was published, it was announced that a new American poet had been born. But fame cannot be antedated, and it seemed as if Mr. Lord were about to disappear before his immorhad fairly been pronounced. In the thin, handsome volume before us, he now presents grave claims. The attempt is certainly audacious, to treat a familiar incident of our revolutionary history as Shakespeare treated the story of Othello and the history of Queen Catharine. Mr. Lord does not enter upon the task blindly or inconsiderately. He acknowledges, in his preface, the obvious difficulty. But he declares that neither -Our poets are winter-birds, and burst into song with the coming of snow. A silent chorus of them sit patiently at our side. Patience, still, poets! There is a more terrible critic than we, sitting in judg-"rhyme nor reason forbid that dramatic ment upon all of us, night and day. The race-course of literature is like the bridge in Mirza's dream-the blithe figures are forever disappearing, silently going under. Not the hottest-pressed paper, not the antiquest type, not the comeliest binding, not even the cheapest price avails to save us. We write our books and print them; our cheerful companion prophesies for us fame and immor; pop! the trap slides, and we are gone before his sentence is ended. This is, perhaps, not the liveliest exordium for the poets, of whom we are about to say a word. But, considering Mirza's dream, verse should now approach as near to our spoken language, as it did in the age of Elizabeth to a now obsolete but then familiar diction." A poet should never write a preface involving a theory; for the proof of his theory and its illustration necessarily lie in the performance. If that be good, there is no need of saying upon what principles it was wrought. If it be bad, the principle remains undetermined. We think that Mr. Lord has told the story of André with interest and force. His poem has fine lines; it is clear and continuous, but it gives the tale no dignity or grandeur that it had not before, and, as a drama, it is faulty, because the chief interest is not in the hero, André, but in Arnold, the betrayer. The character of Arnold is well-conceived, and developed with power; but André, whose interest in history is an interest of situation more than of character, has obviously not the stuff for the hero of a drama. Major André was a gallant youth, who lived and died a gentleman. His story is one of the sad episodes that occur in all wars; but his situation, however sad, is never really tragic. His fate is exterior to himself, not evolved from his character. Had this been so, the author himself could not have suffered the drama to continue after the death of André, which is its natural end. The poet, in fact, follows the truer dramatic development of the tale, and leads us on to the proper culmination of the circumstances, which is not the death of the lesser man-that being only an event -but the consummation of the dishonor of Arnold, the stronger agent. -By the side of the two slight volumes of Mr. Quincy and Mr. Lord, stand two goodly books, Plays and Poems, by GEORGE H. BOKER (Ticknor & Fields). Mr. Boker's is no new name in our literature, and his reputation, as the most fertile and successful of American dramatists, is already established. We are glad that he has collected his works into so handsome a form, and that his literary claims may thus be properly asserted. If the theory of the article in this issue of the Monthly be correct, Mr. Boker has not erred in his choice of subjects for his various dramas. He has not hesitated to go to the same historical sources even at which Shakespeare drank, and in his Anne Boleyn restores to us again the court and the circumstance of Henry VIII., while in Francesca da Rimini we trench upon the gloomy grandeur of the great Tuscan. All these dramasand they are six in number-seem to us written with consummate ability. The plot is always precise and well developed, the characters dramatic and consistent, the costume and the accessories of circumstance, the details of local and contemporary knowledge, remarkably affluent and accurate. The plays have the full flavor of the old drama, and the author may fairly be ranked in the best school of dramatists. Mr. Boker's poetry is all marked by a dry, fibrous strength, which is very unusual, and has little sympathy with the current manner of the time. Sympathetic study of a sturdier literary epoch may thus have left its mark upon him, but the tendency to that epoch was, of course, in his nature. This manly tone is one of the pleasantest characteristics of Mr. Boker's muse. It gives a kind of marrowy sweetness to his verse, besides inspiring a personal respect for the poet. No man interested in our literature will fail to acquaint himself with these poems and dramas, of which, in illustration of what we have said, we can only find room for this sonnet: "Not when the buxom form, which nature wears, Is fragrant with the lusty warmth of spring. Nor when hot summer, sunk with what she Lies panting in her flowery offering: To bear her treasures to the griping snares Not even when winter, heir of all the year, Deals, like a miser round his niggard board, The brimming plenty of his luscious No, not in nature, change she howsoe'er, Of the fair maid in whom my heart is stored." -And here, dedicated to George H. Boker, in smooth, sweet verses, in antique type, is a book of Songs of Summer, by RICHARD HENRY STODDARD (Ticknor & Fields). The antique type runs through the book, and gives it a quaint, dainty air, harmonious with the dainty sentiment and melody of the poetry. We may be pardoned for an especial tenderness toward this volume, when the reader finds in it some of the most beautiful poems that have been printed in Putnam. The first song in the collection, "There are gains for all our losses," is a gush of the purest pathos and music, which our readers will well remember. As the eye wanders along the pages, it sees that there is a kind of dramatic interest in the poems-the subjects and the treatment being, so to say, studies in different lands, moods, and languages. There are songs that would have sparkled as gems in the old dramas-as thus: "The sky is a drinking cup, That was overturned of old, Till the last drop is drained up, "Down at the end of the long, dark street, I sat with my sweetheart on the pier, "The moon was climbing the sky that night, We kissed in its light, and swore to be true, "Once more I walk in the dark old street, But I sit no more on the desolate pier, It is in these bursts and jets of song, that Mr. Stoddard's peculiar talent lies. His songs are not so ingenious as Hoffman's, nor so elaborate as Pinckney's, nor so popular as Morris's; but they have a truer poetic sense, a finer poetic feeling than all of them together. Our poet is not so happy in the longer poems. They have all his excellence of melody, and feeling, and delicate perception, but they have foreign flavor. Even the last poem in the book, affectionate, and graceful, and beautiful, as it is, has yet a touch of Tennyson which teases the memory. This is something, however, that Mr. Stoddard shares with all young authors; the inspiration of books rather than of actual experience. But a song like the following is wholly his own, and shows the poet : "THE FALCON. "In-doors, on a summer day like this, "The brave, bright sun, so merry and old- a Still more poems, and still poetry, Words for the Hour, by the author of "Passion Flowers" (Ticknor & Fields), and the name Mrs. Howe upon the back of the book-Mrs. S. G. Howe, of Boston, wife of the distinguished philanthropist. Every poem in this book is full of the ship with one whose name is no longer a private name--Horace Binney Wallaceand sketches, true as tender, of those whose memories are sacredly private. Robert Browning and his wife are saluted with reproachful music, as not recognizing one who claimed the recognition of earnest effort and not the praise of success. Florence Nightingale, another personal friend of the author, is the theme of some of the best poems in the volume--the last of which we quote, as a fair illustration of that proud tenderness of a woman which illuminates every page of the book. The previous poem ends thus: "Then count not the heroic heart alone In those whom action and result make great, Since the sublime of nature's excellence Lies in enduring, as achieving fate." And then follows the poem 66 Furthermore," in which the poet speaks to men in the name of women: "We, that are held of you in narrow chains, Sought for our beauty-through our folly raised One moment to a barren eminence, To drop in dreary nothingness amazed. "We, dwarfed to suit the measure of your pride, Thwarted in all our pleasures and our powers, Have yet a sad, majestic recompense, The dignity of suffering-that is ours. "The proudest of you lives not, but he wrung A woman's unresisting form with pain, While the long nurture of your helpless years Brought back the bitter child-birth throes again. "We wait upon your fancies-watch your will Study your pleasure, oft with trembling heart Of the success and glory of your lives Ye think it grace to yield the meanest part. "E'en Nature, partial mother, reasons thus: 'To these the duty, and to those the right;' Our faithful service earns us sufferance, But we shall love you in your own despite. "To you the thrilling meed of praise belongs; To us, the painfuller desert may fall: We touch the brim, where ye exhaust the bowl, But, where ye pay your due, we yield our all. "Honor all women-weigh, with reverend hand, The worth of those unproved, or overtried, And when ye praise the perfect work of one, Say not ye are shamed in her, but glorified." This is no "woman's poetry," but the thought and the music of a poet; and the whole book is no less sad and sincere, Why should we hesitate to give to Mrs. Howe the position which she takes by her Passion-flowers and Words for the Hour, and confess that despite the serious faults of art, the difficulty, and obscurity, and imperfect melody-despite the want of an entire fusing of the thought in music, her name must be mentioned among the poets? But she has much to do before her claim will be widely recognized. Without a resolute emancipation from the purely private cast of her song, there will not be that calm clearness and melody which are essential to a permanent acceptation. The poet is not a poet until he has mastered in his verse the emotion which mastered him in life. He sits "pensive and alone, above the hundred-hand play of his imagination." -Studies in the Field and Forest, by WILSON FLAGG (Little, Brown & Co.), is a quiet and delightful book of a sympathetic observation of nature. Birds and plants, and the glories of sky and landscape, are the themes of Mr. Flagg, and what he sees with a comprehensive eye, he tells in such a modest and manly way that the reader is sure to be charmed, and if he be a country reader, and a real lover of nature, he will put Mr. Flagg's book by the side of Cotton's upon his table. A natural love of nature--so to say-always inspires a style of racy simplicity; for the range of observation lies outside the sphere of passion. -Lake Ngami; or, Explorations and Discoveries during four years' Wanderings in the Wilds of Southwestern Africa; by CHARLES JOHN ANDERSSON-has been re published in a beautiful library form by Dix, Edwards & Co.; and its value is greatly enhanced by a prefatory letter from Col. FREMONT. With the dignity and modesty that are characteristic of his whole career, he writes, at the request of the publishers, a simple letter, expressing his general interest in geographical research, and pays a most cordial compliment to Dr. Kane and Bayard Taylor, Americans who have made their names illustrious in the literature of travel. is a valuable and interesting book, to which the recent return of Dr. Livingstone from the same regions gives additional attraction. It |