translation of Baron Van Moltke's German book on the subject. It exhibits the whole question more full from original sources, while the position of the author as a military representative of Prussia at the Porte allowed access to peculiar information. The Baron is not an admirer of Russia, and agrees that her successes in 1828-29 arose not from her own skill or strength, but from the weakness and incompetency of her adversary. Had the Turkish army been well led, or well disciplined, the Russians might have been driven back, while the real secret of Russian advancement is not her armies, but her diplomacy, or in other words, her mendacity and imposture. At the same time. Herr Van Moltke is not sure that an English or French army in Turkey will achieve brilliant things, assigning as a reason, that one half of it is more than likely to fall by diseases and the effect of the climate. The shores of the Danube, along its whole length, in those parts. are exceedingly unhealthy lowlands, in which the natives find it difficult to live, during the summer season, and foreigners are cut off in a short time. The Turks themselves who live there, adapt their clothing, their diet and their habits, to the climate, and survive it. They do no hard work, their meals consist of coffee and a few vegetables, they drink only sherbet, they sit in the shade of a palm-tree all day, and they go to bed at eight o'clock. But how could an English or French soldier be made to endure so simple and tranquil a life?

A new translation of the "Iliad" of Homer, by a Mr. G. T. BARTER, does not meet with much favor among the critics. As Pope had essayed it in heroic couplets, and Cowper in blank verse, and others again, in hexameters, Mr. Barter transfers it to the Spenserian stanza. If the following stanza, which we find quoted in the Examiner, is a good sample of all the rest, we must agree with the critic that Mr. Barter's English is much harder to read than the original Greek:

Deucalion then, where tendons do unite

Of elbow, there through arm brass spear right out Transfix'd. Arm-hamper'd he with death in sight Awaited him, who there his neck y-smote,

And helm with head far flung. From spine-joints spout

The marrow did. And stretch'd on earth he lay. But he went on 'gainst Peireus' offspring stout, Rigmus, who'd come from gleby Thrace away. In midriff him he smote, in belly spear did stay.

Think of twenty cantos of such stuff, put forth, too, as the simple babblings of Homer.

-A "History of Wales" by B. B. Woodward, gives an account of the descendants of the Cimri from the earliest times to their incorporation with England, and presents a mass of information that the archaeologist, antiquarian and historian shape into value. The origin of the people, their many and fierce struggles for independence, the great deeds of their ancient kings and rulers, and the myths and legends of their bards, are discussed and described, with an evident love of the subject, and a most familiar knowledge. Mr. Woodward dwells upon the manners and customs of the old Welsh, but his most entertaining chapter is that on "Bards and Bardism." in which he copiously illustrates, by extracts, the peculiarities of their rhymes. One is apt to associate the name of bard with a person subject to outbreaks of lyrical enthusiasm ; but many of the Welsh bards, it seems from this, were mere dabsters in rhyme, who tried to see in how many ways they could make language jingle. One of their tricks was to make line after line commence with the same word, or derivative of the same word, another was to adopt the same termination for every line, and a third to put the rhyme in the middle of the line. Here is a specimen in which the middle of every second line rhymes with the end of the line preceding it.

"We wisdom seek, and calm content,
They both frequent our dwelling;
From these a deathless comfort springs
The joys of kings excelling.

"There's one who rules this earthly ball
Bestows on all his favors:

His providence we firmly trust

To crown our just endeavors."

This is, however, pleasant reading compared with the following, where the rhyme of the first line occurs in the penultimate part instead of at the end:

"Gwynedd! for princes gen'rous fam'd-and songs,
By Gruffydd's son unsham'd
Thou art; he, hawk untam'd,

Is praised where'er thy glory is proclaimed."
Far more complicated is the following:

"Fair as flowers at spring's renewal,
Blythe and sportive, never cruel,
Glancing brighter than the jewel;
Alas, the jewels!

Alas, the jewels!

Jewels are a false adorning," &c.

-A translation of Oenschlager's exquisite drama "Coreggio," by Mr. THEODORE MARTIN, is much praised by the English critics; but we do not perceive, by the extracts they give, that it is a whit

superior to a translation published anonymously in this country some years ago,indeed, some passages are not so good. The original itself is so delicate, clear and beautiful, that a perfect translation is quite impossible. We remember to have read it years ago, in the German, in which it was written by the author (as well as Swedish), and regarded it at that time as a touching glorification of a great genius in painting by another great genius in poetry. But a perusal of the English version does not recall our earlier admiration. It is still, however, even under the veil of translation, a sad, pathetic story, tenderly and nobly told, with the characters admirably individualized, and a grand tone of aspiration breathing around its sweet pictures of the struggles and trials of genius. The finest passage in the whole is, perhaps, the soliloquy of Antonio (Coreggio), on entering the grand picture gallery of the Duke Ottavio, a cold, hateful character, by the way, to whom he was carrying a picture for sale. It is a long passage for extracting, but it will repay the reader, especially if he have artistic tastes.

"Antonio (enters, carrying his picture on his back). Arrived at last! Good heavens, how tired I am!

(Puts his picture down, takes a chair, and sits.) It was so hot, the road so long, the sun

So scorching! Ha! the air's refreshing here.
Ah me, how happy are earth's great ones! They
May dwell in these cool palaces of stone,
That hold, like excavated rocks, at bay
The fury of the sunbeams. Freely rise

The vaulted roofs, broad pillars cast a shade;
Fresh bubbling springs plash in the vestibules,

And cool both air and walls. Heavens! who would not

Be lodged like this! Well, so shall I be soon.
How smoothly and how pleasantly one mounts
Along the broad, cold marble staircases!
Antiques in every niche,-fine busts, that look
Serenely down with a majestic calm.

(Casts a look around the room.)
This hall, too, is right noble in its style.
Ha! what is this I see? With paintings fill'd?
It is the picture-gallery. Oh! blessed Virgin,
I'm in a temple, and I knew it not!

Here hang the glorious trophies of your art,
Italia's painters !-will for ages hang,

As rich-emblazon'd scutcheons o'er the tombs
Of heroes dead, to witness of their deeds.
Oh. all ye saints, which shall I first peruse?
Landscapes, and animals, heroes, and Madonnas!
Mine eye flits round, as does a bee amidst
An hundred different flowers. Alas! I see,
For too much seeing, nought. I only feel
Art's fresh and noble presence move me deeply.
Oh, I were fain to bow me down, and weep
Within this temple of my ancestors!
Look there! That picture's beautiful! Yet no,
"Tis not so fine as first I thought it. Well,
They cannot all be choice. What have we here?
No, that's too merely pretty. In my life

I ne'er saw any thing like this before;
An aged woman, furbishing a pot,
Within her kitchen; in the corner, see!
A cat asleep, and, near, a white hair'd boy
Is blowing bubbles through a tobacco pipe.
It never struck me until now, that one
Could make a picture out of things like these;
And yet this kitchen now, it looks so trim,
So bright and clean, 'tis quite a treat to see!
How finely the sun strikes through the green leaves,
In at the window, on the brazen pot!
Who was it painted this? Is that the name
Beneath the picture? (Reads.) Flemish, him! Un-

known!

Flemish? What country can that be, I wonder?
Can it be far from Milan? Oh, look there,
At these large pictures! Tables strewed with flowers,
With glasses partly fill'd, and lemons peel'd,
And dogs, and little birds. (Starts.) What have we
here?

Why this is exquisite! Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Four greedy gray beards counting o'er their gold!
But what comes next? It is our Saviour's birth.
I know it well, Master Mantegna's work!
How sweetly winds the mountain pathway here;
How fine the three kings bending there before
Child Jesus, and the eternal queen of heaven!
Here is another picture, much the same,
A little quaint, but very nicely felt,
The ox on the Madonna's shoulder lays

His snout, and peers with curious wonder down;
The Moor grins kindly too,-his heart is touch'd.
The small bambino in the casket gropes,
To find a plaything there. By Albert Durer.
He was a German, that I know. One sees
There be good worthy men behind the mountains,
True painters, too. Heavens, what a glorious picture!
A princely dame, young, blooming, full of soul;
How the eye burns, how smiles the little mouth!
How nobly on her sits the rose-hued hat
Of velvet, and the full deep velvet sleeves!
By Leonard' da Vinci. Well might he
Be called Magician;-this indeed is painting!
The next there is a king, which seems to me
Touch'd in the self-same style; perhaps it is
By Leonardo too; he painted it,

When he was young, most probably. (Reads.) By

Holbein.

I know him not. I know you there, old friends!

How farest thou, worthy Perugino, with

Thy soft green tone, thy figures ranged to match
On either side, thy still repeated thoughts,

And thy unfailing Saint Sebastian!

Still thou'rt a glorious fellow! Though, perchance, Some more invention had not been amiss.

There are the mighty throned: yonder hangs

A powerful picture, the full size of life.

A noble graybeard! Tis the holy Job.
Grandly conceived, and executed grandly!
That surely is by Raphael. (Reads.) No. By-Fra
Bartolomeo. Ah, the pious monk!

It is not every monk can work like this.
Who could find time to look at all that's here?

There at the end a silken curtain hangs:

No doubt behind it is the best of all.

I must see this before Ottavio comes
(Draws back the curtain, and discloses Raphael's
Saint Cecilia.)

This is the Saint Cecilia! There she stands,
And in her down-drooped hand the organ bears.
Scattered and broken at her feet are cast
Mere worldly instruments; but even the organ
Drops silenced with her hand, as in the clouds
She hears the seraphs quiring. Her eye soars!

By whom is this? It is not painting; no,
"Tis poetry-yes, poetry! As thus I gaze,
And gaze, I see not the great artist merely,
But also the great man!

Here is sublime, celestial poesy,
Express'd in colors. Such, too, is my aim,
The goal I strive in my best hours to reach.
(Enter OTTAVIO. ANTONIO, without saluting him,
and wholly absorbed in the picture, asks him)
This picture, whose is it?

"Ottavio (coldly). "Tis Raphael's. "Antonio (with joyful enthusiasm). Ha, then I am a painter too!"

-There is an individual who calls himself Sam Slick, but whose real name is Haliburton, who writes tales and sketches of American life on purpose for the English market. He is a Nova Scotian by birth or residence, and knows about as much of genuine Yankee character as one half the comic actors who attempt to personate it on the stage, i. e., he knows a few enormous exaggerations and nothing more. His representations, however, are received in England as the true thing, and nine out of ten of the current slang expressions, which the English ascribe to Yankees, are taken from his books, never having been heard of in Yankee land. They strike a New Englander as oddly as they do John Bull himself, and are most likely inventions of the author. But Mr. Haliburton's last book is an improvement upon his former volumes. It is called "The Americans at Home, or By-ways, Backwoods and Prairies;" and consists of selected original stories, from the press of the several States, illustrating the local life, from a coon hunt to a husking frolic, and presenting the characters of the halfcivilized emigrants and hunters of the frontier, in all their bold, hardy, manly, and sometimes picturesque adventures. It is a companion piece to Mr. Haliburton's Traits of American Humor, which was compiled in the same way.

painstaking way, which imparts to all the writings of this author, such a vraisemblance and air of naturalness; "Aubrey," by the author of Two Old Men's Tales, somewhat loose in texture and extravagant in conception, but powerful and exciting; the story turning upon the love of two twin brothers for the same lady-the one a reserved, studious, and intelligent man, and the other a frank sailor, and ending, of course, in the success and punishment of the subtlest not the best of the two suitors; "Counterparts, or the Cross of Love," by the author of Charles Auchester, not sustaining the promise of the earlier book, with more of the defects and fewer merits; "Angelo," a romance of modern Rome, showing up the workings of Jesuitism, as well as the secret movements of the late Revolution, with the requisite machinery of a novel of Italian life, consisting of stilettoes, trapdoors, masks, dungeons, and midnight poisonings, &c.; and last, not by any means least, "Nannette and her Lovers," by TALBOT GWYNNE. As the last has been republished here, we may say of it, at greater length, that it is a story of French domestic life during the era of the revolution. The heroine, at the time it opens, is on the eve of marriage with a young countryman, but the ceremonies are interrupted by a mob. The lover is carried off to join the army, rises in rank, but grows selfish and vain as he rises, and when he comes back, is indifferent to his betrothed, who subsequently marries another. The plot is simple enough, but it is artfully told; and in its several incidents portraying with vivid fidelity the aspect of public affairs at the eventful period in which the scene is laid. It is by far the best of any of Mr. Gwynne's novels that we have looked over.

- We can hardly hope to keep our readers au courant with the course of English novels, for they are issued so rapidly and forgotten so soon, that by the time the large edition of Putnam reaches its readers, an entire new batch is on the carpet. Among the best of the most recent, however, we may notice the following:-Mrs. CLARKE'S "Iron Cousin,"* which is the history of a self-willed and nearly spoiled beauty, saved at last by a cousin of inflexible principles, well told, with fine dramatic incidents throughout, but quite too long for the interest; "Claude the Colporteur," by the author of Mary Powell, an account of the adventures of a Bible missionary on the continent, effectively narrated, in that minute and

rism; but a sounder view now obtains, and these supernatural tendencies are considered as the protests of the heart against that scientific narrowness which converts nature into a mere mechanism, and confines life to mere visible realities. It gets to be associated with the most monstrous chimeras and superstitions, and has led in times past, to rites inconceivably horrid, and to methods of legislation as atrocious as they were absurd; but lying back of most of its vagaries, are profound and central truths. Mr. Radcliffe traces many of these, through the religions of different nations, but the best part of his book is taken up with Hallucinations, Dreams, Presentiments, &c., which he accounts for on the same principle as Sir David Brewster, Sir Walter Scott, and others who have written on the subject. The volume is often amusing, in the anecdotes it brings together, out of the literature of all nations.

FRENCH.-Mr. Stirling's Cloister-Life of Charles the Fifth, is well known by this time to English readers. and supposed to have thrown much new light upon the history of that monarch; but M. AMEDEE PICHORT, in his Charles Quint (Charles Quint, Chronique de sa vie interieure, et sa vie politique. de son abdication, et de sa Retraite dans le Cloitre de Yuste), has aimed at quite opposite conclusions, contending that he is the first historian who has really obtained a glimpse at the true personal character and domestic life of the hero. we are wrong in speaking of him as a historian; he claims to be a mere chronicler only; but whatever he is, his book seems to be conclusive as to its subject. Spanish, German, and English authorities are cited in abundance, to say nothing of those of the French archives to which he has had access. The fault of the work is prolixity and superabundance, though the author handles his materials with great freedom and judgment.

But

The same author has recently published a book about the Mormons (Les Mormons), which is a compilation apparently from the various accounts of them given in the American newspapers and English reviews. It is noticed in the Revue du Deux Mondes, which makes itself quite merry over the doctrine of spiritual wives, and attempts to deduce the movement of Joseph Smith from the Protestantism of the 16th century, combined with the doctrines of the Millennarians and Swedenborg, and a touch of the Socialists. Poor Joe, if he were alive now

would be surprised to find what an illustrious descent his craft and impudence had, and how profoundly philosophical his spiritual genesis!

-The seventh volume of the life of Joseph Bonaparte, entitled Mémoires et Correspondence Politique et Militaire du Roi Joseph, contains the sequel of the Spanish correspondence down to April, 1811. It has, doubtless, value for the historian, but is without general interest.

-A book is printed by M. GRASSET, to prove that J. J. Rousseau was at a place called Montpellier once-an important fact not mentioned by his biographers. In the first, he shows that Rousseau, then about twenty-five years of age, sojourned at Montpellier, and consulted a physician for a palpitation of the heart with which he was troubled; in the second part, he establishes his relations to certain people and professors; and in the third part he attempts to refute the very poor opinion that Rousseau appeared to have of its inhabitants. The next work we should recommend the author to undertake would be a translation into French of Poole's "Little Pedlington."

-We postpone a number of works on French ethics, that we may get in an extract or two from LAMARTINE'S latest work, "Memoirs of Celebrated Characters," which is a kind in which his brilliant faculties work to the most advantage. As a regular historian, Lamartine has remarkable defects, but as a sketcher of schemes and characters in history he has no superiors. He is not always accurate, it is true, but he is quite sure to be picturesque and impressive. The volumes before us open with Nelson, of whom, and particularly his friend Lady Hamilton, he gives a most striking sketch. Here is the introduction of the latter personage:

"Thus originated, by the combination of events, and the accidental sympathy of an old man, the fatal attachment between Nelson aud Lady Hamilton; which, like the passion of Antony and Cleopatra, inflamed the coasts of the Mediterranean, changed the face of the world, and carried on to glory, to shame and to crime, a hero entangled in the snares of beauty. To comprehend, clearly, the infatuation of Nelson, it becomes necessary to retrace the life and adventures of Lady Hamilton, at first the Aspasia, and afterwards the Herodias of her age,-elevated by extraordinary beauty, by fortune and blind affection, from the hovel of her mother, and the suspected dens of London, to the rank of an English arubassadress, the hand of a gentleman of distinguished rank and ability, and the close intimacy of a queen of whom she was the protectress and ally, rather than the dependent companion. Supreme beauty is a royalty of the senses, which subjugates even the masters and mistresses of empires. These conquests are the miracles of nature; few have arrived at the do

minion which Lady Hamilton, the modern Theodora, exercised by her charms.

"Her only name was Emma, for her father remained always unknown. She was one of the children of love, of crime, of mystery, whom nature delights to overwhelm with gifts in compensation for the loss of hereditary claims. Her mother was a poor farmer's servant in the county of Chester. Whether she had lost her husband by death, or, like Hagar, had been abandoned by her seducer, she arrived unknown and reduced to beggary, at a village in Wales, the Switzerland of England. She carried in her arms a female infant of a few months old. The beauty of both attracted the simple mountaineers of the village of Hawarden; the stranger picked up a livelihood by working for the farmers and gleaning in the fields. The marked and noble features of the child served to propagate the rumor that her birth was illustrious and mysterious; she was said to be a daughter of Lord Halifax. Nothing afterwards, either in her fortune or education, gave color to the report. At the age of twelve she was received in a neighboring family as children's servant. The frequent visits of her master and mistress to London, where they resided in the house of their relative, the celebrated engraver, Boydell, gave her the first ides of the impression her figure produced on the crowd in public places, and a vague presentiment of the high fortune to which her beauty would exalt her. At sixteen she made her escape from Hawarden, a field too obscure and circumscribed for her expanded dreams, and engaged herself in the household of a respectable tradesman in London. A lady of superior rank, struck by her appearance in the shop, elevated her to a higher position of servitude. Almost without employment in an opulent family, Emina gave herself up to the perusal of those fascinating romances which create an imaginary world for the love or ambition of youthful minds; she frequented the theatres, and Imbibed there the first inspirations of the genius of dramatic expression, of action, and attitude, which she embodied afterwards in a new art, when she became the animated statue of beauty and passion.

"Being discharged by her mistress for some household negligence, her growing taste for the theatre induced her to seek a situation in the family of one of the managers. The irregularity and freedom of that establishment, the constant intercourse with actors, musicians, and dancers, initiated her in the subordinate mechanism of the dramatic art She was then in the flower of her youth, and the full perfection of her beauty. Her tall and elegant figure equalled in natural grace the studied attitudes of the most practised figurantes. Her voice was soft, mellow, and capable of expressing deep tragic emotion. Her countenance, endowed with susceptibility as delicate and varying as the first feelings of a virgin mind, was, at the same time, pensive and dazzling. All who saw her at that period of her life agreed in describing her as a resuscitation of Psyche. Purity of soul, transparent through elegance of feature, surrounded her even in her dependent position with a respect which admiration dared not overleap. She spread fire without being entangled in the flame herself; her innocence found a safeguard even in the excess of her beauty. Her first fall was not a descent to vice, but a gliding into imprudence arising from a yielding nature.

"A young countryman, of the village of Hawarden, SOL of the farmer who had first given an asylum to her mother, was seized by a press-gang, and carried in fetters to the fleet at anchor in the Thames. Emma, at the entreaty of the prisoner's sister, accompanied her to the captain of the ship to implore the liberation

of her brother. Won by the beauty of the fair sup. pliant, he listened to her prayers and tears, removed her from her low though honest station, overwhelmed her with shameful luxury, furnished a house for her, supplied her with masters in every ornamental accomplishment, boastfully displayed his conquest in public, and left her, when the squadron sailed, exposed without safeguard to new seductions. One of his friends, bearing a noble name, and possessed of a large fortune, carried off the faithless Emma to an estate in the country, treated her as his wife, made her the queen of hunting parties, fêtes, and balls; and finally, growing tired of her at the end of the season, left her in London, at the mercy of chance, necessity, and crime."

After describing her extraordinary career at length, he draws the curtain from the last scene in these few lines:

"Lady Hamilton, universally reprobated as the instigating cause of Nelson's errors, sank, after his death, into the insignificance from which her per sonal charms alone had originally elevated her. She fell from the splendor of vice to utter neglect, and from opulence to poverty. Twenty years after the death of the victor of Trafalgar, an unknown female, still preserving the remains of extraordinary beauty, died in a foreign land, in Calais, where, for several years, with reduced means, she had sought an ob scure asylum. After her decease, the landlord ascertained from her papers that this impoverished stranger was Lady Hamilton, the widow of an ambassador, the favorite of the Queen of Naples, and the adored mistress of Nelson! She was buried by public charity. Nelson, by naming her in his will, had only bequeathed to her the scandal of his attachment and the indignation of his country."

The life of Nelson is followed by that of Heloise, then comes Christopher Columbus: then Palissy the Potter; then the fabulous hero Roostain, by Madame Lamartine; and then in order Cicero, Jacquard, the inventor of the loom; Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Homer, Göttenberg and Fenelon. The illustrious author intimates that this is the last book he intends to publish, but the announcement we suspect is a ruse to assist his publisher, and is preliminary to more last words. He has grown careless, in his later publications, but we can ill

afford to lose his brilliant sentimentalities and idealizations. We prefer, however, that he should dwell upon the Heloises, and the Emma Hamiltons, than upon the Cromwells (whom he cannot comprehend), or better still, to continue the memoirs of his own life.

-The Cossacks of the Bourse, (Les Cozuques de la Bourse) is the seasonable title of a little satirical tale by F. DE GROSSEILLIER, in which he exposes the influence of stock gambling. The hero is a simple-hearted Breton, who is gradually inducted into all the mysteries of Parisian life, from dining at the Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, to making a splen