EDITORIAL NOTES. LITERATURE. AMERICAN.-Hours of Life and other poems, by Sarah Helen Whitman (G. H. Whitney, Providence), is the title of a volume of poems just issued, to which we call the especial attention of our readers. We have few collections of American verse so strongly individual as this; so permeated with that sincerity which instantly assures the reader that he is not enjoying the distillation, through the poet, of another's experience, but tastes, at first hand, the honey-dew which has not fallen upon other pages. Such fresh and direct inspiration from nature, compelling the singer to express not only the sentiment inspired by the landscape, but to describe the landscape itself, with a success so remarkable, that it is at once song and picture such pure, and holy, and feminine feeling for all the changing aspects of nature and the year, as if the singer's heart were a harp so delicate that even chasing sun and shadow swept it into music, and yet a feeling entirely untainted with sentimentality-such profound and solemnized passion, breathing through every word, as if the poet's life were consecrated to some sublime sorrow, which was, in the truest sense, "sanctified,"-such affluence of extensive and rare cultivation-every where indicated and nowhere obtruded, are not often discovered in any volume of poems, and never before in those of an American woman. They are stamped through and through with reality, and they have a subtle and exquisite melody of rhythm, which lingers long upon the ear, after the words are read. The fine, feminine delicacy of the whole-a delicacy which steeps the book like an atmosphere, is quite beyond expression. The poems have, also, the careful finish of the conscientious artist, who knows and respects the value of his work. We should infer from this volume, which is, evidently, the musical history of the poet's experience, that the author has led a solitary, studious, contemplative life; seeing nature with her own eyes, and feeling it with her own heart, and not through the lore of which she is clearly mistress; that her scholarship is most acute, various, and profound, with a love of the higher philosophy and speculation, which leaves a mystic aroma in her verse, like the fragrance of Grecian flowers in the honey of Hymettus; that this musing, sensitive, and somewhat ecstatic life had been crossed by some bitterly actual experience,—that kind of experience which, as Irving says, however unfortu nate to the individual, is invaluable to the poet; that this had given her a hold upon the reality of living, had sent her mind with a new and alarmed and eager interest through all the mazes and mysteries of spiritual research, which research had resulted in a sweet and simple faith, none the less sweet because sad, none the less simple because decorated with the trophies of its triumph. This is, indeed, the substance of the long poem which gives a name to the volume, which strikes, therefore, the key-note of the music that follows -a poem which is well prefaced by the motto from Dante. For the name of the bard who describes the horrors of Ugolino's prison, and tells the sad story of Francesca, suggests, of itself, the austerity and the tenderness of every deep, individual expe "Beside the brook, and on the umbered meadow, Where yellow fern tufts fleck the faded ground, With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow, The gentian rods in dewy slumbers bound. "The little birds upon the hill-side lonely, Flit noiselessly along from spray to spray, Silent as a sweet, wandering thought, that only Shows its bright wings and softly glides away. "The scentless flowers in the warm sunlight dreaming, Forget to breathe their fulness of delight,And through the tranced woods soft airs are streaming, Still as the dew-fall of the summer night. "So, in my heart, a sweet, unwonted feeling The very measure of this poem leaves the mind in an Indian Summer mood. We are not, however, writing a review, and must say no more than these fragmentary hints of excellence, except that the few translations from the French and German are among the best in English literature, and that several of the sonnets addressed to an unknown, are only to be matched by the passionate and superb Portuguese sonnets of Mrs. Browning. We regard this volume as the most valuable recent addition to our poetry, having a distinct and individual value, which must infallibly secure for its author the place of a true poet in public regard. - Mr. N. P. WILLIS appears to have gone into a kind of literary hybernation, and to be living the while on the fat of his reputation acquired in his summery days. Every month or two, we have the announcement of a new book from him, but when we get it, it proves to be only some of his former writings, under a new name. We do not mention this, however, by way of complaint, for there is a perennial freshness in the greater part of his works. Besides, in this country, readers grow up so rapidly that there are always large classes of them, to whom the oldest and most popular books must be new. But Mr. Willis has an additional motive for the publication of his last volume, called Fun Jottings, because the pleasant tales of which it is composed, though in print before, are only to be found in the scattered volumes of magazines. - It is a singular taste that Mr. J. T. HEADLEY has for writing about battles and bloodshed. When we read any of his vehement descriptions of blood and slaughter, the evident goût in which they are written reminds us of a story told by the late Stuart Newton of a pupil of his, in London; the lad's father was desirous of making an historical painter of his promising son, and paid the entrance fee which the artist required. Some days after he had been in the artist's studio, Mr. Newton discovered him one morning crying behind his easel, and asked him what was the matter; whereupon the boy replied "I don't want to be a painter, I wants to be a butcher." Some such trials as this misplaced lad suffered, we imagine, must have been experienced by Mr. Headley in his cloister studies, when he read" of battles and of wars." But, if Mr. Headley had been bred to the trade of a soldier, he might not have written with such gusto of military achievements, and the world would have lost some very spirited writing. His most successful book was a detail of the campaigns of "Napoleon and his Marshals," sufficiently sanguinary to satisfy the palate of any vam pyre. It was followed by a work on "Washington and his Generals," which was only less crimson in its colors, because the subject did not require the same florid painting. We then had a life of "Cromwell," whose fighting abilities were not at all overlooked, and now we are furnished with a history of the Second War with England, crowded with victories. One might, therefore, suppose, from his selection of topics, that like an Irishman at Donnybrook Fair, he saw no fun in life till the shillelahs were at work. His fondness for cocked hats, the roll of drums, and the blare of trumpets is prodigious; he could repeat Sempronius's speech in Cato, or the soliloquy of young Norval in Douglass with a gusto, and find the tower of London, or the arsenal at Venice, the most delightful place of resort in Europe. Even the Invalides at Paris, where his favorite "Old Guards," with the merest remnants of bodies, and those riddled like a cullender with bullets, stalk about on one leg,-living monuments of the glories of war,-must possess a lively and cheerful interest for him, as an anatomical museum has for surgeons, or a collection of fossils and bones for a naturalist. The style of his writings, too, partakes of the quality of his predominating love, for it has a sharp quick crack, like a rattle of musketry, compelling attention, though one cares never so little about the objects shot. As to this last book, in spite of our general dislike of his subjects and his mode of treating them, we are disposed to commend it, because it is, on the whole, the most spirited narrative of our last struggle with England that we have read. It has fewer of the author's characteristic faults than his previous works, a better choice of incident, and more accurate portraiture. It is, also, duly patriotic, and does ample justice to the gallant fellows who, on land, lake, and ocean, achieved our second emancipation. - A Memoir of Adoniram Judson, by Dr. WAYLAND, President of Brown University, records the experiences of one who was both a pioneer and a veteran in the missionary cause. He began the work of proselytizing the heathen at a time when the attention of the Church was just beginning to be awakened to the subject, and continued it up to the hour of his death, which occurred only a few years ago, and after the missionary enterprise had become one of the most prominent and extensive of Christian labors. It may readily be imagined that his life abounded in vicissitudes, furnishing his accomplished biographer with copious materials for a most interesting narrative. From his youth and early consecration to the mis -a sionary service, through all the changing fortunes of his career, his visit to England, his captivity in France, his perilous journeys in savage lands, his long imprisonment, his repeated afflictions and his laborious struggles, up to his last illness on shipboard, he was the same active, fearless and devoted Christian,man of high character, tender susceptibilities and indomitable will. His piety, at one period of his life, was of too entirely ascetic a character, but it appears to have softened and ripened in his latter days, until he became as lovely as he was energetic and decided. President Wayland has discharged his editorial duties with fidelity, skill, taste, and a warm feeling for his subject. - It is not easy to infer from the title of The Mud Cabin, that the work so named, and written by WARREN ISHAM, is a treatise on the character and tendency of British institutions, illustrated by incidents of personal adventure in England. But such it is, and the title is simply meant to suggest a contrast to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which, in one way or another, gives a tone to our current literature. The author travelled for eighteen months in Great Britain, observing the condition of the people, and he represents it to be degraded and unhappy in the extreme. But he writes throughout like one who has a case to prove, and not like an impartial inquirer. We should have more confidence in his facts if they were not so obviously designed to establish a foregone conclusion. His book is a loud yell from first to last against every thing English, and we are forced to the conclusion that Mr. Isham went abroad knowing as little of the geography, history, people and institutions of his own country as it seems he knew of those of England. The style of the Mud Cabin is viciously vulgar, and turgid to the verge of absurdity, whenever he attempts to be high strung and romantic. Our acquaintance with bad books is by no means limited, but we do not remember having read any thing comparable with Mr. Isham's attempt to describe a storm at sea. His disquisitions upon English affairs are in the interrogative manner, which he must have borrowed from Mr. Chadband's religious exercitations. His pages bristle with points of interrogation, all directed, by the way, to himself, for the purpose of eliciting his brilliant replies. He has a familiar, too, who is a most convenient personage, in the shape of" an eminent member of Parliament," who gives Mr. Isham a good deal of information, such as the fact of the Queen's ministers being members of Parliament, and who allows himself to be patiently knocked down in argument; for it does not appear that Mr. Isham ever came off second best in any of the disputations which he had with the subjects of the British crown. He lands at Bristol, and, to his amazement, finds "that English dirt is just like American dirt, and is put to just about the same uses." He was not favorably impressed by the personal appearance of the subjects of Queen Victoria, and says, "such looking objects I never beheld before." No sooner had Mr. Isham set foot on English soil than his republican nerves, which ought to have withstood much harder rubs, were shocked by the aristocratic usages which, on all sides, were encountered. "Why, within one half hour after my arrival," exclaims Mr. Isham, with exquisite sensibility, "I was directed, in reply to inquiries, to go up Prince-street, cross King-street, go down Charlotte-street, cross Duke-street, &c., &c., quite an overdose for my repub lican stomach, to begin with." Delicious! If Mr. Isham should ever inquire his way to the Metropolitan Hotel, in New-York he would be told it was on the corner of Prince-street; if he should walk down that street towards the North River he would find himself in King-street; if he should cross the East River to Brooklyn he would find himself in King's county, and a short ride on the Long Island Railroad would take him into Queen's county; a short ramble up the Hudson would bring him to Dutchess county, and by going into Massachusetts he might find himself in Duke's county, while a trip into Virginia and Maryland, both named in honor of English queens, would introduce him to more royal and aristocratic names than he could find in all England, Ireland, and Wales. What would become of his republican stomach under such circumstances! If Mr. Isham should undertake to republicanize our geographical nomencla ture, he would be well set to work, and we commend the subject to his attention. In alluding to the drinking clubs of England, Mr. Isham says, "London is full of them. Dr. Johnson's tavern, the same where the great moralist used to meet with the drinking-club, of which himself, Dean Swift, &c., were members, is a perfect haunt for drinking-clubs to this day." We think this extract will do as a specimen of Mr. Isham's literary talent and information. But, we are desirous of dealing fairly with Mr. Isham, and we must not omit to state that there is some really valuable matter in his book, and much that is amusing. That which is valuable is his account of the visits he paid to the mud cabins of the agricultural laborers, whose condition he describes in a sober and candid manner, and with a degree of pathos that does him infinite credit. If he had confined himself to the simple description of such scenes his book might have been productive of much good, and the result to himself would have been more profitable than, we fear, it will be now. - Dr. LIEBER, of South Carolina, who is well known as one of the most learned and industrious of writers, has recently published a work in two volumes On Civil Liberty and Self-Government. It is a profound and analytical inquiry into the principles of civil liberty and the nature of self-government, illustrated by vast historical research and an extensive range of statistical observation. Dr. Lieber is a warm friend of popular rights, grounding his attachment upon sincere and intelligent convictions, and not upon mere enthusiasm, and the object of his writings is, to convey to others the reasons of his own enlightened faith. Appended to the treatise, are several papers on Elections, Election statistics, the abuses of the Pardoning power, and the laws of Evidence, which abound in striking and original facts. He has also added, what every political student needs to have constantly before him, the Magna Charta of King John, the Petition of Rights, the Bill of Rights passed in 1689, the Articles of American Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the French Republic, and other important documents which may be regarded as the symbolic books of Republicanism. We know of no more prolific writer than Dr. SIMMSs, who has lately added to his already voluminous works a book which is entitled, Egeria; a Voice of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside. It is a series of reflections somewhat in the style of Lacon, giving us the ideas and opinions of the author in short sentences and apothegms, "the most portable fences of truth," and illustrating his own remark that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly exploded in the air. They exhibit the author in the light of a thinker, as his previous works have chiefly exhibited him in that of the artist, and will, we think, materially increase his literary reputation, although we do not find in Egeria any thoughts startling for their brilliancy, nor any counsel that strikes us as profoundly solemn. After many years of research and labor, Dr. EDWARD BEECHER has pub lished a work on a subject which has occupied and perplexed the intellects of religious philosophers since the reign of Christianity. He calls it The Conflict of the Ages, or the great Debate on the Moral Relations of God and Man. It is written with great learning and skill, and will attract the universal attention of the Church. -It is with some surprise, as well as regret, that we see it intimated in the Southern journals that the Southern Quarterly Review, edited by Dr. SIMMS, does not receive a support adequate to its merits. As an exponent of the opinions of the South, and a representative of its best literature, every number containing articles either of learning, thought, criticism, or rhetoric, written by scholars and experienced statesmen; it ought to have a circulation equal, at least, to that of any American periodical of the same kind. Surely there must be literary culture enough in the State of South Carolina alone to sustain so valuable a vehicle of discussion and thought! By what culpable indifference, then, is it that the Southern Quarterly is permitted to languish? Among the recent republications, or, more properly, resuscitations, that claim our attention, is the new and complete edition of the Works of Addison, which has been undertaken by Putnam and Co. The work will be published in five volumes, under the capable editorship of Professor G. W. Greene, one of our most accomplished belles-lettres scholars. Strange as the fact may appear to literary students, there has never before been a complete edition of Addison's writings published, which will render the present one peculiarly valuable. The edition will contain several essays which have never appeared in any collection of his works. Those who are desirous of following the Johnsonian precept, and giving their days and nights to Addison, may now do it more effectively, and with less cost, than it could ever have been done before. A new edition of Cooper's Naval History, bringing down the history of our navy to the close of the Mexican War, and giving an account of our various exploring expeditions, has just been published by Putnam and Co. -Among the announcements for the coming month we notice the Autobiography of Anna Cora Mowatt,—preliminary, we suppose, to the rumored relinquishment of life under that title; New Amsterdam, or New-York under the Dutch Governors, by Prof. A. DAVIS; a record of the travels of GRACE GREENWOOD, called the Haps and Mishaps of year in Europe; a volume of α Poems by GEORGE LUNT; the Sermons of Dr. CHARLES LOWELL; a volume by Dr. TURNBULL, called Christ in History, or the great Central Power; and the long-expected work of EMERSON, called English Notes. Among the ornamental publications in preparation there is one on the Homes of American Statesmen, similar to that very attractive and successful volume, the Homes of American Authors. The new volume is likely to be acceptable, for good writers and good artists have had a hand in it. Lovers of Nature's haunts' and of the minstrelsy of the woods will be charmed with Webber's Wild Scenes and Song Birds, of which we have seen twenty illustrations elaborately printed in colors. This volume will be a novelty and a very pleasant one. The famous Wide, Wide World is to be honored in an illustrated octavo edition; and the young people will be glad to learn that their friend Ellen Montgomery is to present them with a duplicate of her Book-case. some ENGLISH.-FREDERIKA BREMER'S Homes of the New World. The most noticeable book, among recent English publications, for us, is Miss Bremer's Homes of the New World, which has appeared in London in the old orthodox style of three volumes, translated by Mary Howitt. The book will be much more entertaining on this side of the world than on the other, for the amiable little author has been so personal in her remarks, and so piquant in her descriptions, that only those who know well the scenes and persons she alludes to can fully appreciate the value of her observations. It will be a great comfort to the admiring crowds who hovered about her wherever she went, while she was in this country, to know how much they annoyed her, how indiscriminately she lumps them together, and what she thought of them at the time. She makes very free with people's names, although a good many are only alluded to by their initials, and falls into a good many amusing blunders about persons and places. But she is never querulous nor ill-humored, and we fear that we shall never have a traveller among us better disposed towards us, or who will make a milder report of our shady side, and a more genial one of the bright side of our national character. She is the first foreigner who has complimented the male part of our population on their good looks; she has the eye of a sculptor for the good points of manly beauty, and is never so warm and enthusiastic as when describing the fine looking men. It must bring a blush to the cheeks of gentle Geoffrey Crayon, when he reads her portrait of him, and, if there is any gallantry at the South, the slave-dealer at New Orleans who so seized upon her imagination by his personable attractions, will not be backward in acknowledging her hearty and agreeable picture of him. The book consists of letters principally written to her sister, and one long one to the Queen of Denmark. The Homes of the New World is not so good a book as the Neighbors, but it has some of the best qualities of that popular novel, which served as the introduction of the author to the homes which she has so genially described. FRENCH.-A new work on Abelard and Heloise has made its appearance with the names of Mons. and Madame Guizot on its title-page as the authors. The novelty of such co-operation, in a book of such a nature, would alone suffice to render it memorable, apart from the interest of the subject. Madame Guizot brings the narrative of the life and writings of these immortal lovers down to the Council of Sens, and the conclusion of their history is furnished by her husband. But what renders the volume particularly valuable, is the complete collection which it contains not only of the letters of Abelard and Heloise, but of all the original documents relating to their career and misfortunes. -A theme for eloquence, and poetry, and the noblest warmth of historic composition, has been taken hold of by the Countess DROLIGOWSKA in her Femmes Illustres (Illustrious Women). It includes not only European heroines, but those of ancient as well as modern times. Gonzaga, Margaret More, Valentina of Milan, Lady Nithsdale, Anna Bounin and Fredrica Bremer are among those who figure successively in these interesting pages. Julia -An excellent little book, intended for children, but worthy the attention of grown-up people, is the Recits de l'histoire de France (Tales of the History of France), by M. CONGAUR. It is modelled on Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, and was written especially for the now exiled Count of Paris; the style is clear and simple, and the tales have the interest both of history and romance, the facts of the one being preserved along with the art of the other. Only the first volume is now published, including the history of France under the Gauls and Romans, but the succeeding volumes are announced as soon to appear. -Students of political economy will find it worth while to procure the Statistique de l'Industrie à Paris (Statistics of Industry at Paris), a quarto volume of a thousand pages, containing the result of |