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title of "History of Latin Christianity; including that of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicholas V. It is a continuation of the old work, inasmuch as it begins with the period of time in which the former closed, but it is still a complete work in itself. A brief introduction, going over the history of the religion in Rome, during the first four centuries, in which much use is made of the recently discovered "Hippolytus," is a fitting connection of the two books. By Latin Christianity, the author means the Christianity which was adopted in the city of Rome, and then spread over the greater part of the Roman world, distinguishing it from Greek Christianity, which was the first form which the religion of Jesus took during the years of its promulgation. Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, he regards as the chief founders of its doctrine and discipline. He describes at large the character and influence of these men, and the modifications which were gradually introduced into the ancient faith by the institutions of the Roman world. His narrative is always clear, though diffuse, and sometimes eloquent, while his opinions are unusually liberal for one who occupies a post of high dignity in an established church. The principal events have been already treated in English by the masterly hand of Gibbon, and in German by Mosheim and Neander; but Dr. Milman is so fine a scholar, and such an agreeable writer, that his history may be welcomed as a valuable addition to the literature of the period.

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-It is impossible not to suppose that the English are direct descendants from Nimrod, for they are the "mightiest hunton the face of the earth. Not only at home, but in the remotest regions in which man can live, they manifest this controlling propensity. They shoot on the Moors, they shoot in Scotland, they go to Norway to shoot, they penetrate Africa to shoot, they cross the ocean, and visit our western prairies to shoot, and they ascend the mountains of Asia to shoot. But, what is better than the shooting, they describe the countries through which they shoot, and furnish the world with admirable volumes. One of the latest of these is COL. MARKHAM'S 'Shooting in the Himalayas," which is a journal of sporting adventures in Chinese Tartary, Thibet, and Cashmere. It is written with much animation, and, though it does not pretend to be any thing more than a book for men who may have a fondness for hunting tigers, conveys a VOL. III.--43

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vast amount of entertaining knowledge to the general reader.

FRENCH.-M. ALFRED NETTEMENT has prepared two volumes, called a "History of Literature during the Restoration" (L'Histoire de la Littérateur sous la Restauration"), which traces the movement of ideas in France, from the beginning of the present century to 1830, and forms an admirable complement to the numerous political histories of the same period which have lately been published. Few epochs are more interesting, and none more important to a full understanding of our modern intellectual tendencies.

M. Nettement begins his work with the great literary reaction which marked the advent of the present era, when Chateaubriand, M. de Bonald, and Joseph de Maistre, laid the foundations of the new monarchical and religious school in France. He then describes the literary condition under the empire, which issued in two rival philosophic schools,-that of spiritual rationalism, under Roger Collard, from whom came Guizot, Villemain, Cousin, and Jouffroy; and that of catholicism, under M. Frayssinous, from whom came the later catholicism of Lamennais (and others. The author then describes the poets of the period-Hugo, Delavigne, Alfred De Vigny-each of whom he characterizes at length. Passing to the historians, he analyzes the merits of Guizot, Thiers, Miguet, &c., and then the political writers, such as Canel, Paul Louis Conria, when he concludes with a view of the theatre, and a general estimate of the intellectual value of the age of which he speaks. M. Nettement is a clear and vigorous writer, but quite too conservative in his sympathies for our taste.

"The Desert and Soudan" (Le Desert et le Soudan) is the name of a new book of African travel, by Count D'ESCAYRAC DE LAUTURE, recording the adventures of some eight years' wanderings in the immense plains which stretch from Algiers to the 10th degree of latitude, and are called Sahara, or Soudan. The volumes contain, besides the usual incidents of travel, some new and original observations upon Islamism, and a curious study of the different races which people North Africa. In respect to the latter, indeed, nothing seems to have escaped the author. Their manners, their religions, their politics, and their past histories, have been analyzed and grouped with patient observation and skill. The influences of climate upon the instincts, habits, and laws of nations,

give the writer occasion for remarks which will be found, we think, useful illustrations of the steps by which mankind advances from barbarism to civilization. The style of this work is clear,-a Frenchman can hardly write obscurely,― lively, and precise, but better in its scientific than in its narrative parts, which are too reserved and succinct.

-A young gentleman-M. DE FERRIERE LE VAYER-who was secretary to the French embassy to China, has given the results of his visit to the Celestials, in a work called "A French Embassy in China ("Une Ambassade Française en Chine"). We should rather say, the results of his observations, than of his official life, for there is little diplomacy, and a great deal of actual life in his book. It cannot be said that there is much which is new in his book, and what there is, seems to come with more authenticity from one in his position, than from ordinary travellers.

-M. EMMANUEL DE LERNE entertains us with a study of men who are not only great men, but lovers ("Amoureuses et Grands Hommes "), and thus parades the attachments to women of Molière, Goethe, Richelieu, and others, in a kind of sketch half romance and half biography. Like all specimens of "amphibology," as Col. Benton has it, it is somewhat disagreeable, an uninstructed reader not knowing two thirds of the time what is romance and what truth. For our part, we detest this mingling of truth and fiction, and greatly prefer an entire and downright, to a concealed or painted falsehood.

-Luther is for the most part remembered only as the great religious reformer; but M. A. SCHEFFER, of Stuttgardt, presents him in a scarcely less important light, in an account of his labors in aid of popular education ("De l'Influence de Luther sur l'Education du Peuple"). He shows, that the same strong arm which shook the walls of Rome, was equally efficient in pushing forward the enlightenment of the masses.

He organized schools even more rapidly than he disorganized churches, seeing in the former the surest and best means of supplying the place of the latter, and of securing in perpetuity the advantages of the immense movement he had in hand.

-One of the best books on Russia that we have read, is by M. CHARLES DE SAINT-JULIEN ("Voyage Pittoresque en Russie"), who appears to have spent many years in exploring the domestic life of the Muscovites. As his title indicates,

he has little to do with the politics of the empire, though he does not neglect to glance at it now and then; his descriptions consisting mainly of pictures of popular manners and external aspects. What goes on from day to day, among the people, is what we learn from him, and not the supposed secrets of cabinets and policies of the Czar. His travels begin amid the splendors of St. Petersburg, and end (where the travels of a good many Russians themselves end) in the icy solitudes of Siberia; but on the way, we are taken over Finland, as far as Torneo, the most northern city, thence to Archange', where a grand snow-storm is brilliantly described; then down to Moscow, the ancient fortress of the Czars, then along the course of the Wolga into Central Russia, to Astrakan and its fairs, to Kazan and its fortress, and finally to the Caucasus, and its mysterious mountains. study of the various races embraced in the Russian empire, this book has great value, and we are sure must have been written before the recent war was declared, it is so free from the prejudices which every Englishman and Frenchman holds it to be his duty to express in regard to the Russians.

As a

-A second volume of M. SAINT MARC GIRARDIN'S Recollections of Voyages and Studies (Souvenirs de Voyages et d'Etudes), is not as strictly uniform as the first, to which we have formerly alluded. It opens with Celtic Traditions, then passes to Friendship among the Scythians. next to a picture of Barbarous and Feudal society, next are a series of chapters on Christianity among the Germans, and finally a miscellany about Gregory of Tours, the Romance of Reynard the Fox, the Danish tradition of Hamlet, the Pucelle of Chapelaine and Voltaire, and a dissertation on the right to labor. These several subjects are from pieces contributed to the daily papers, and are treated somewhat popularly, yet with unquestionable learning.

GERMAN.-Any one who looks into the Moriscoes in Spain (Die Morskos in Spainen), of A. L. VON ROCHAN for an interesting history of the Moorish domination in Spain will not be disappointed, but he will do better to refer at once to Count de Circonet's Histoire des Mores Mudejares et des Morisques, from which the greater part of it is translated directly without acknowledgment. Indeed the translation in many parts is so faithful that typographical errors and all appear in the German version just as they stand

in the French. The whole work, however, does not belong to M. de Circonet, for there are forty pages out of the four hundred which belong probably to the reputed author; but in these forty pages are a half-dozen grave historical mistakes.

-If the German public does not know as much about the United States as many of our own citizens, it cannot be for the want of books on the subject. The latest of these that we have seen is the "Travels between the Hudson and the Mississippi," (Wanderungen zwischen Hudson und Mississippi) by MORITZ BUSCHE, who appears to have spent some years in America, especially about Cincinnati and its neighborhood. He writes intelligibly of our affairs, without prejudice, and for the most part in approval. We have not found much that is new in the work, although the author proves himself a diligent observer and an acute critic. The chapter which has interested us most is an elaborate one on Negro Melodies, in which some twenty or thirty of the most popular negro songs, such as "Oh, Susannah." ""Uncle Ned," "Rosa Lee," &c., are translated into the German.

-N. J. ANDERSON, one of the most distinguished Swedish naturalists, who was appointed by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm to accompany the Swedish Circumnavigation, has published a highly interesting description of this expedition under the title "Eine Welt-Umsegelung," published by C. B. Lorck in Leipzig. This work is to be considered as a precursor to one which will embody the purely scientific results of this expe

dition.

-Americans need go abroad no longer for all their German literature, seeing that a new literary Magazine has been set on foot by some Germans of Milwaukee. It is called the Atalantis, and is highly respectable both in its appearance and its contents. American, German and miscellaneous topics are discussed in its pages with dignity and talent. Among the articles we remark an introductory on the literary prospects of the United States, with some fine discriminating observations on our national character, an essay on the Pacific railroad, a treatise on the school system of Michigan, a translation of Dr. Franklin's letter on slavery, a new novel, and a pleasant dissertation on the devil, considered esthetically, or as that personage appears in books. One can scarcely believe it, as he reads this periodical in German, that a few years since, the place where it is now published, was a favorite campingground of the wild Indians.

FINE ARTS.

The immigrants from the old world who enrich us most by their contributions to our prosperity, are the artists, whose elemental speciality we most need. It is an easy thing, for those who are willing, to dig a canal, or lay a rail, but to add a grace or an ornament to social life is not so easy, let the will be never so strong. It is one of those cases where the will does not always find the way. The artistic instinct, though it comes by nature, is of little value without proper cultivation; and that is the point where we most feel our need of reinforcement from the old world. We have plenty of genius for art in the rough, but the requisite polishing to give it value is what we have not an abundance of. Every artist, therefore, who comes here to better his fortune and give us the benefits of his talent, is of greater value than whole ship loads of hod-carriers.

The engraved portrait of Thackeray which hung in the shop-windows last spring-the original of which belongs to Lord Ashburton-and that of Tennyson, the Italian head which all his lovers have studied with delight in the Boston edition of his poems, and an earlier head of Willis prefixed to the illustrated edition of his poetry, have made us familiar with the work of Samuel Lawrence, an English artist whose name has long been familiar to us as one of the most eminent of his profession. He has recently arrived among us, personally introduced by the pleasantest letters, which say nothing good of him that his performances since his arrival have not fully justified. His portfolio is enriched by a three-quarter length sketch of Thomas Carlyle, presenting a likeness of the man which no sympathetic student of his works would fail instantly to acknowledge, even had he never seen the original; and a head of Rogers, the last of a generation of great poets. These works of Lawrence's are in crayon. That of Rogers is a sketch for a picture which he painted last year in London. Since he has been here he has been engaged upon several heads, and among them that of the historian Bancroft. Lawrence has not lost his eye nor his hand, as some singers lose their voices, in crossing the sea. The same qualities of surprising likeness, arising from subtle perception of the essential character of the subject, distinguish them all. There is a vitality, a reality, an individual spirit about them, which assure the spectator that he is seeing the very meaning of the person represented. Like all gen

uine workers, he respects nature too much to flatter, but, like all true artists, he detects the peculiar charm of every countenance. It is the result of long study and observation educating the natural eye. A man is born a portrait painter as he is born a poet. First, there is the eye to perceive things as they are and not as they seem; then there is the hand to obey fearlessly the direction of the thought. The young men and young women go to the exhibition of the academy, and are very gently witty upon the "Portrait of a Gentleman," "Portrait of a Lady." which decorate those walls. But Titian, Leonardo, Velasquez, Rubens, Vandyck, were portrait-painters. They understood the scope and meaning of that department of their art. Their portraits are not only individual emperors, doges, and burgomasters, but they are also Spain, Venice, and Germany. They are among the great shrines of travel and study. Raphael's portraits of Popes Julius Second, and Leo Tenth, are ranked with the Transfiguration and the Foligno by all lovers and amateurs. They show the same genius, conscience, and skill.

Next month, on the commencement of a New Volume, we shall present the public with an engraved portrait of the author of the Potiphar Papers, from a drawing by Mr. Lawrence, the first one he executed in this country, and the best among all the capital ones we have scen by him. This will be the first installation in OUR VALHALLA, but it will be succeeded by a portrait monthly-some en buste and some full length, executed in the best style of engraving, of the contributors to our Monthly.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

RUSSIA AS IT IS. By Count A. Gurowski. Appleton & Co. 1854.

CAMPAIGN IN NORTHERN MEXICO. By an officer of the 1st Regiment Ohio Volunteers. G. P. Putnam & Co. 1854.

MELLICHAMPE, A Legend of the Santee. By W. Gilmore Simus. Redfield. 1854.

THE BRIDE OF THE ICONOCLAST. A Poem. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1854.

THE BOW IN THE CLOUDS. Discourses by George Ware Briggs. Boston: James Munroe & Co. HOMEOPATHY; its tenets and tendencies, theoretical, theological, and therapeutical. By James Y. Simpson, M. D. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1854.

THE VOICE OF LETTERS. Ancient proprieties of Latin and Greek, the standard of English letter customs. By Joseph B. Manning. James Munroe & Co. Boston: 1854.

THE RECALLED AND OTHER POEMS. By Jane Ermina Locke. James Munroe & Co. Boston: 1854.

By Rev.

THE DIVINE CHARACTER VINDICATED.
Moses Ballon. Redfield. 1854.
MINNIE HERMON; or, THE NIGHT AND ITS MORNING.
A Tale for the Times. By Thurlow W. Brown.
Auburn Miller, Morton & Mulligan. 1854.
THE FORESTERS. By Alexander Dumas Appleton
& Co. 1854.

MERRIMACK; OR, LIFE AT THE LOOM. A Tale. By
Day Kellogg Lee. Redfield. 1854.

THE HISTORY OF CROMWELL. 2 vols. From the French
of Guizot. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard.
THE POEMS OF CHARLES CHURCHILL 3 vols. Little.
Brown & Co. Boston: 1854.

THE POEMS OF EDWARD YOUNG. D. D. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co. Boston: 1854.

THE PLANTER'S NORTHERN BRIDE. By Mrs. Caroline Lee Hentz. 2 vols. Philadelphia: A. Hart. 1854.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT-BOOK, containing selections from the writings of Daniel Webster, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Washington's Farewell Address, &c. New York and Boston: C. 8. Francis & Co. 1854.

MARIE LOUISE; or, The Opposite Neighbor. By Emilie Carlin. New York: Appleton & Co. 1854 MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL-MASTERS. By Hugh Miller. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

SPIRIT MANIFESTATIONS EXAMINED AND EXPLAINED; Judge Edmonds Refuted. By John Bovee Dods. New York: Dewitt & Davenport.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF W. H. C. HOSMER. 2 vols. New York: Redfield.

A YEAR WITH THE TURKS. By Warrington W. Smyth, M. A. New York: Redfield.

THOMAS A. BECKET, and other Poems. By Patrick Scott. London.

THE WINTER LODGE; or, Vow Fulfilled. By James Wier. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co, LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF A COUNTRY MERCHANT. By J. B. Jones. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co.

TRIALS AND CONFESSIONS OF AN AMERICAN HOUSEKEEPER. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo &

Co.

THE ART-STUDENT IN MUNICIL By Anna Mary HOWITT. Boston Ticknor, Reed & Fields 1854.

CRYSTALLINE; or, the Heiress of Fall Down Castle. A Romance. By F. W. Shelton. New York: Charles Scribner. 1854.

DESPOTISM IN AMERICA. An Inquiry into the Nature, Results, and Legal Basis of the Slaveholding System in the United States. By Richard Hildreth. Boston: J. P. Jewett & Co. 1834. THE WHIMSICAL WOMAN. By Emilie F. Carlin. New York: Charles Scribner. 1854. AFRICA AND THE AMERICAN FLAG. By Commander Andrew H. Foote, U. S. N. New York: D. Ap pleton & Co. 1854. NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO THE NORTHWEST COAST OF AMERICA IN THE YEARS 1811-1814. By Gabriel Franchère. Translated by J. V. Huntington. New York: Redfield. 1854. THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH. By John C. Warren. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1854. TYPES OF MANKIND. By J. C. Nott, M. D., and George Gliddon. Lippincott, Grambo & Co. Philadelphia: 1854.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS AND INCIDENTS IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, SoNORA, AND CHIHUAHUA. By John Russell Bartlett. Appleton & Co. New York. 1854

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