form and color and shade perfect as nature; and this labor repeated in each flower embraced in the whole edition. The artist's work is done also with such exquisite care and taste and delicacy of touch as to vie with nature herself. Each flower is accompanied with a poem descriptive of it, generally from the pen of some distinguished writer in verse, thus combining the genius of Poetry and the adornments of Art to make the book attractive. The work deserves a generous patronage. Not a copy of her former work can now be had. To a lady especially, no more delicate and beautiful gift book could be presented. Another beautiful and elegantly illustrated holiday book is The Cotter's Saturday Night.* This noble poem is worthy of those adornments of art which have been bestowed on Gray's Elegy," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," Thomson's "Seasons," and other kindred treasures of English verse. The engravings in this volume, fifty in number, are admirably well designed and spiritedly executed, and artist, printer, and binder have conspired to make a perfect book. It is hardly necessary to add that these illustrations give new interest to the reading of this immortal production of nature's own poet. The same publishers have brought out on large paper, with a fine steel portrait of the author, a new and superbly illustrated edition of Dr. Holland's Bitter Sweet, one of the noblest poems which American genius has produced. Paradise Lost, with Doré's illustrations, import The Life of Milton-a full and admirable one by Dr. Vaughan-and the notes appended, increase the value of this princely work. We have not space for a more detailed notice of it; indeed, we despair of doing it justice. We advise our friends, unless they mean to buy it, to keep their eyes off of it. Bishop Heber's Hymns are treasured as sacred household words wherever the English language is spoken, and there now lies on our table an illustrated edition of them in a style of great perfection and beauty. The illustrations in this volume strike us as quite equal, in appropriateness of design and delicacy of finish, to any thing we have seen. We are glad to see genius and artistic taste so worthily applied. D. Appleton & Co. give us a revised and enlarged edition of the Household Book of Poetry, by Mr. Dana. We need not characterize this work, for it has been several years before the public, and has been received with distinguished favor. The general character of the collection remains unaltered in this new edition; while some pieces have been omitted which were found in the previous editions, others have been sub- We must not fail to note a small quarto illusstituted which are believed to possess greater trated gift book from the press of Lippincott & merit. The volume is considerably enlarged; Co. The poetry itself is beautiful, and the iland, perfectly printed on paper of snowy white-lustrations are superlative. We have never seen ness and beautifully bound, adds another to the finer specimens of chromo-lithography. It is a list of elegant, and at the same time, valuable gem of a book. holiday books. Smaller in size, but of equal perfection in artistic and mechanical execution, is Maud Muller. If it were possible to add new beauty and attraction to this rare gem of American verse, the skill of Hennessy and the taste of the publishers have accomplished it in this illustrated edition. The same might be said of Evangeline.§ The illustrations are in Darley's happiest style, and the paper, press-work, and binding are all in keeping. The most royally magnificent book of the season-one fit to be a gift to a prince, and the sight of which is a feast to the eye-is Milton's The Cotter's Saturday Night. By Robert Burns. Illustrated by F. A. Chapman, New-York: Charles Scribner & Co. The Household Book of Poetry. Collected and edited by Charles A. Dana. New-York: D. Appleton & Co. Maud Muller. By John G. Whittier. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. & Evangeline. A Tale of Acadie. By Henry W. Longfellow. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. Milman's History of Christianity; from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. By HENRY HART MILMAN, Dean of St. Paul's. A new edition, thoroughly revised and corrected. 3 vols., crown 8vo. NewYork: William J. Widdleton.-Dean Milman's Histories have justly attracted extraordinary attention in this country as well as over the water. His History of the Jews, in five volumes, and his Latin Christianity, in eight volumes, are both of them standard works. Uniform with these we have now in three volumes a new edition of his History of Christianity, carefully revised and corrected by the author. This history embraces the important period from the birth of Christ to the abolition of Paganism in the Roman empire. *Milton's Paradise Lost. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. Edited with Notes and a Life of Milton, by Robert Vaughan, D.D. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. Agents in New-York: Scribner & Welford, 654 Broadway. ↑ Heber's Hymns, illustrated. London: Sampson Low, Son & Masterson. New-York Agents: Scribner & Welford. The True Church. By Theodore Tilton. Illustrated from Designs by Granville Perkins. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. cessible to the European public in Ms. form and indigenous language. During a period of thirtytwo years the committee have published, or aided in the publication, of more than seventy translations. Of these many are highly valuable, all are curious and interesting, and several of them are of such a nature that, without the aid afforded by the society, they could scarcely have been undertaken. The Sanskrit translations include those of the Sankhya Karika, Rig Veda, and Vishnu Purana. Among those from the Arabic are found the travels of Ibn Batuta, and of the Patriarch Macarius, Al-Makkari's history of the Mohammedan dynasties in Spain, and the extensive lexicon of Hajji Khalia. There are also on the list translations from the Persian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Chinese, and Japanese languages." Lovers of our old ballad literature will be glad to hear that the original manuscript collection from which Bishop Percy took his Reliques is about to be printed. The worthy bishop, unfortunately, thought it his duty to alter these ballads, and some were so transmuted during the process that very little of the antique color and aroma was left. Thus, the original "Childe of Elle," consisting of eight stanzas only, and ten small fragments, was drawn out into the long poem with which we are all familiar. Some times the story was entirely altered: for instance, in the original, "Sir Cauline" marries, and has fifteen sons; but in the Percy version both the knight and his lady are killed. The bishop's poetry may be very good, and he may have been compelled by the taste of his age to modify the plain outspokenness of the manuscript; but we want to know what is his, and what the old minstrel's. This we shall be able to do, if the scheme for printing the manuscript entire should succeed. We are told that it consists of one hundred and ninety-six pieces, or about forty thousand lines; that the collection was made in the time of James I.; that £150 have been paid for the right to copy and print it; and that it will be published by subscription, under the direction of Mr. F. J. Furnivall. Actions by literary men against publications and publishers, for remarks of which they disapprove, are becoming common. Mr. Charles Reade is hitting right and left, on both sides of the Atlantic, in defence of his last novel. Mr. Dickens threatens Mr. Cave, manager of the Marylebone Theatre, with an action for offensive imputations contained in a reply written by him to some remarks on that place of entertainment, recently published in All the Year Round, which Mr. Cave attributed (though erroneously) to Mr. Dickens; and Mr. Robert Buchanan has two actions on hand. "Mr. Buchanan," says the Glasgow Citizen, "chose, from motives of personal friendship and gratitude, to dedicate his last volume to Mr. Hepworth Dixon. The critic of the Westminster, who, being a poet himself, has, perhaps, a right to devote himself to the choking of singing birds,' chose to fall foul of this dedication, and to attribute 'sycophancy' to the poet, whereat are great wrath and a threatened lawsuit. The same plaintiff will appear in another action against Mr. Bentley, the proprietor of Temple Bar, for publishing his name as that of the author of a poem called 'Hugo the Bastard.' Mr. Buchanan does not deny his paternity, but, as the piece is not a favorable specimen of his style, he thinks that he had a right to maintain his anonymity if he chose." The press on the Continent is undergoing a period of great tribulation. The Español, of Madrid, states that the Captain-General, "exercising the powers conferred on him by the exceptional state of the country, has suspended the publication of the Correspondencia for a week, and condemned the director to two hundred crowns fine for publishing false news." In Russia, the same thing is going on; for, according to the Northern Post, of St. Petersburg, the journal called the Viest (News) has received a second warning for having, when alluding to the nomination of a Governor-General, made some remarks on the qualities of his predecessor, and by so doing having set an example "which might lead other journals to publish articles not in accord with sentiments of propriety, with the dignity of the service of the State, or with the obligations incumbent on the periodical press." As long as they can plead the example of France, Spain and Russia may be excused. " Southey's Library. It is stated that the number of uncut books in Robert Southey's library is remarkably great-as much as three per cent. Among the presentation copies uncut are Coleridge's "Aids to Reflection" with a long presentation note; Sir H. Davy's "Consolations in Travel; Dibdin's "Bibliographical Tour;" D'Israeli's "Calamities of Authors; " Franklin's "First Polar Voyage; Charles Lamb's "Specimens of the Dramatists;" Landor's “Imaginary Conversations;" Gifford's "Massinger;" Sharon Turner's "Sacred History of the World;" and Chr. Wordsworth's "Eikon Basilike," Coleridge, Davy, Lamb, Landor, and Gifford, in the above list, were Southey's familiar friends. We regret to learn that Mr. G. H. Lewes is compelled to retire from the editorship of the Fortnightly Review, owing to ill health. Art of Printing.-Mr. II. Noel Humphreys, artist, author, and numismatician, is said to be writing "A History of the Art of Printing, as applied to Books, and the Successive Methods used for Recording Events previous to the Invention of Printing." One of his previous works is the "History of the Art of Writing, from the Hieroglyphic to the Alphabetic Periods," published in 1853. The Oldest European Newspaper.-The Frankfort Post Zeitung, founded, in 1616, by the Prince of Tour and Taxis, and continued under the patronage of that house ever since, has ceased to appear. National Preacher.-The fortieth volume, or forty years, of this long-established and valuable work is completed with the December number. The series of forty volumes or forty years comprises over a thousand sermons, or discourses, from some five hundred ministers and preachers of the past forty years. A large expenditure of money in reprinting the exhausted numbers was necessary to complete sets of forty volumes. Price, $40. May be had of the editor of the National Preacher, No. 5 Beekman-street. |