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CRITICAL NOTICES.

Almost a Heroine. By the author of Charles Auchester, Counterparts, and Rumour. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. Cincinnati: For sale by G. S. Blanchard.

This list comprises the most remarkable works of the imaginative order, which have ever been published, and some of them surpass the limits of ordinary admiration. There seems to be no fit response to them but enthusiasm. A woman it is that writes them, for no man could be so entirely in the sacred circle of the ideal, without even an instant's transgression; and herein, perhaps, lies the "open secret" of these works. They have only to do with ideals, and consequently, as an artist, their author must advance to the highest place indeed, like all persons of true genius, she is a soul astray — Heaven, the Heaven of our highest and rarest aspiration, is her home. Only from such a one could such a strain proceed as this:

"Let none envy the fate of the exceptional, those whose fate it is to weave rainbows into the awful web of being; whose fathomless heart-springs brim the fountains of imagination with eternal freshness, while the dream-flowers nurtured by that freshness only bloom to die. It is no characteristic, no destiny to be coveted by the selfish for themselves, or by the loving and unselfish for their children. If these exceptional beings are weak or false to their own estimates; if on the least scrutiny a flaw is found, then they do evil in this evil world. If they are strong and pure, and shrink not to declare what they know-nay, all the more, if their mind's history is a page clean as drifted snow- - then they must endure to the end, perhaps find that end the martyr's fate without his crown."

The above is from Rumour, in many regards her most characteristic work, which, however, no American publisher has been kind enough to issue.

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Almost a Heroine is, every way considered, the least important of these works; and yet it is full of a life that would be overmuch for any but trained readers. In it a new gospel is given to fallen man, and rare exception!absolute purity is insisted upon. There must be no compromise whatever in any of our personal relations: these should spring from the Sovereign LawLove. Any violation can not be so ritualized or certified as to save it from the deadly element of prostitution. The author especially dwells on the marital relation; since, if there be a flaw here, the discord enters into all other relations. A terrible sacrifice in this direction, made from a stern sense of duty, gives the work its deep interest, and is in distinct contrast with a perfect marriage.

But

We are aware that the circle of readers which these works will enjoy must be limited, and that Fame's brazen trump is not the appointed utterer of her merits. Indeed, we could not desire that a conventional, garish popularity should whisper the spirits, as the Arabs say, from this exceptional one. we have never read her works, from that golden day when Charles Auchester bore us, as on magic mantle, from height to height in the pure ether, but there seemed to stand near the sacred triumvirate, Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn; and they say, "Wheresoever we are recognized or remembered, this that she hath done shall also be recognized and remembered."

M. C. B.

The Marble Faun: or, the Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2 Vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. Cincinnati : For sale by G. S. Blanchard.

Amongst those "entertainingly constructed heads" of which Charles Lamb speaks, we have always reckoned Mr. Hawthorne's; and, after reading this, h's newest and oldest romance, we feel much as if we had passed with torches through Weir's Cave, in which, for the time, the spirit of the Phantom Chamber, the Gothic Hall, the Tomb, the Fairy's Grotto seemed to be the stuff of which real life is woven, and the sunshine, oaks and bluebirds illusory. Mr. Hawthorne passed out from the stage of Literature about eight years ago, in not a very graceful way; many a heart that had glowed over the Twice-Told Tales," and kept ever fresh the "Mosses of the Old Manse," became cooler and dryer when his genius stooped to yoke itself with the party-ox which was dragging into the presidency a mere pretender. But let bygones be bygonesRichard is himself again. He bears, manifestly, a true Damascus blade; and though, whilom, folded up as if it were a riband, it comes forth bright and keen and magical as of old.

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As a work of art, this Tale has superiorities and defects which the author has not exhibited hitherto. Despite the "tragical" nature of the work, as the newspapers term it, there is a moral purpose and a struggling into sunshine not to be found in the "Scarlet Letter 66 or Blithedale Romance." Is it not time that we recovered from the dyspeptic idea of tragedy? Is it, for example, tragical when two spirits, having soiled themselves with evil, so gain the divine discipline, which every evil must have at the core, that they go cheerfully, hand in hand, to drink the cup they have mingled for their own lips? Is it not triumphal rather than tragical -a theme struck in the major, not the minor key? As if death were the one mournful thing! Few tragedies, thank Heaven, have ever been written; and those few are the sad records of souls selling themselves to a near success— - taking their feet from the neck of the Fiend to give him their hands. Meanness is the only tragedy.

Besides this more cheerful tone, these gleams of a higher and definitely moral beauty, which pervade this work, amounting, in some cases, into that which few had ever expected of its author - a distinct expression of optimismwe have portrayals of real character. Donatello is not a stranger to the circle of any careful observer — furry ears and all. Arrested developments are found all along the way; voices from which the bleat or roar has not died— eyes which call forth the huntsman.

But we spoke of defects in the volume, considered as a work of art. There is too much stage effect, of the Ravel style: where so many white doves fly about a Yankee girl, who devotes her congregational piety to keeping a vestal flame before the Virgin's shrine, instead of singing "Park Street" and "Smyrna ;" when said doves fly from her tower down to her lover and back again; when said girl longs for her distant lover for a special emergency, and he feels at the moment a tug at his heart-stings; when, indeed, many things woven into this story, take place, we are so abominably sophisticated, in this age, as to think of slides and wire ladders, and invisible grapples - of men and boys behind there, in their shirt-sleeves, tugging at cranks and pulleys. A geuius so prolific might dispense with these things.

Stories from Famous Ballads, for Children. By GRACE GREENWOOD. With illustrations by Billings. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. Cincinnati : For sale by G. S. Blanchard.

What Tennyson has done for old folks this lady has had the "grace" to do for the little folks; and we are not sure that she has not done it quite as well. It is an occasion for real joy that these rich old stories, the very nutriment which a Saxon boy might crave, are beginning to come forth from their hiding-places in the British Antiquarian Alcoves. We have for years believed that a Book is to emerge from Ellis' Metrical Romances and Bede and Froissart, which shall outshine even the Arabian Nights! The work before us is a pleasant beginning in this direction. We are not sure that the bloody scenes of Chevy Chase might not have been omitted. The story of Griselda is not told according to the best Chronicles, and we do not think that anything is gained by effecting a reconciliation of Griselda to her cruel Lord: her broken heart tells a higher truth But we do not care to cavil at a work so full of exquisite interpretation of the grand old Legends, and one which, we would fain hope, is but the first sheaf from a fruitful field.

Passing Thoughts on Religion.

Night-Lessons from Scripture. By the author of Amy Herbert. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Cincinnati: For sale by Rickey, Mallory & Co. There is no particular fault to be found with these well-meant productions; though we can not help remembering the saying of Pythagoras that " should be silent, unless he have something to say that is better than silence."

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The Barn-Yard,
The Farm.

New York: Fowler & Wells. 1860. Cincinnati : Rickey, Mallory & Co. We have before had occasion to speak of the admirable works, of practical utility, published in cheap form by the well-known phrenological firm of New York. The series now before us is in every way worthy of attention Whereever there are young persons, it would be well to have them read the first four; and we can easily believe that many a farmer toils through many large volumes, or suffers many annoying experiences, ere he knows the facts and methods conder sed in the last twc.

A Trip to Cuba. By JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. Cincinnati For sale by G. S. Blanchard.

The chief interest which we have found in this work is the account it gives of Theodore Parker, in whose company Mrs. Howe went to Cuba. Under the name of Can Grande - - a name furnished by Dante, the selection of which is not without its shrewdness-she gives a real and life-like representation of that true man, about whose pallid brow so many earnest benisons and hopes are now hovering. Mrs. Howe has long known and listened to Mr. Parker;, and there is a racy Boswellism about this portion of the book. For the rest, one would say that she found very little in Cuba after Can Grande left. Mr. Hurlburt's Gan-Eden is a picture more alive. Indeed, we think that Mrs. Howe was so much disgusted with everything and everybody there, that she failed to get beyond the surly phase of a Cuban visit.

Eric; or, Little by Little: A Tale of Roslyn School. By FREDERICK W. FARRAR, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Columbus: Follett, Foster & Co., 1860.

We never take up a work for the young without remembering the admonition of Fuller, the divine, to the judge who had the power of life and death: "Let him take care how he strike, who beareth a dead hand." The unencrusted young, how are they at the mercy of whatever teaching or impression may come in authentic form! for they are not yet trained to know that anything in print is not necessarily a graven tablet, handed down from Sinai.

The present work is not a dangerous one to put into the hands of a child, which is saying much. It records, with much truth, how easy and gradual the descent into evil is. It is the picture of a good-hearted boy, who, when he had once opened his heart's door to the importunate knocks of one of the minor vices, could not shut it against other and larger ones. He is saved at last but so as by fire: he is renewed only in the pangs of death.

Although the chapters are rather ostentatiously begun with citations from Greek, Latin, and German authors, the book is one for youths between the ages of twelve and sixteen. We should advise all who have any rude young Vikings, to administer to them some doses of reflection which they will find prepared in these pages. If a child is inclined to be thoughtful, such a work is not sufficiently bracing; there are too many tombstones in it.

The Bible: Is it of Divine Origin, Authority and Influence? By S. J. FINNEY.
Boston Bela Marsh. 1860. Cincinnati: For sale by A. Hutchinson.
The Errors of the Bible, demonstrated by the Truths of Nature. By HENRY C.
WRIGHT. Published and for sale by the same.

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The first of these pamphlets, as they may almost be called, although they contain 115 pp. each, is quite forcible, and written in a candid spirit. The writer says with truth: "I do not aim my shafts at the truths- - the many and beautiful truths - that lie amid its pages like diamonds midst the rubbish of ages; but only at the doctrine that it is the first and last revelation of the Divine Will, of miraculous origin and infallible authority to us on all questions of morals and religion." The reader will find that the subject has been pursued with fidelity and research.

Mr. Wright's work has the faults incidental to a strong nature, which has neglected old Foster's maxim, that "Genius is patience." He has not been patient in his investigations, nor patient with conclusions which, however erroneous, have the respectability of being facts. Wherever there exists a highway, there was some reason for there being a highway; if any body has found out a better way, let him not fume and fret that, until it has been made pretty clear of stumps, the general trade is on the old thoroughfare. Also, we think that this work partakes of a fault too common with its class—the shooting at dead sparrows with cannon balls.

Mr. W. T. COGGESHALL, our industrious State-Librarian at Columbus, is preparing a work on the Poets and Poetry of the West, and desires all materials, biographical sketches, poetic specimens, etc., which can be furnished. The subject is one of deep interest to the West, and we trust that his request will be at once responded to by all who can contribute to it.

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JESUS was born of Joseph and Mary his wife, humble people who lived in Bethlehem, a small town in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Of his youth little is recorded, and nothing is certainly known. It was passed, probably, in obscurity- an obscurity rendered the deeper, perhaps, by the very circumstances which made his after-life distinguished, namely, his religious employment and character. As has been well said, "the contemplation of objects above the common pursuits of life frequently produces an indifference towards, and inaptitude for them, which in the eyes of most observers, and in many cases justly, place the recluse below rather than above the level of his fellow men. The active but petty engagements which would confer weight in a provincial town, were probably little sought after by one who was meditating on the prophets; and the respectable Nazarenes who filled the important offices of priest, ruler of the synagogue, or taxgatherer, might have smiled with contempt if told that their names would be eclipsed by that of the low-born, obscure and apparently useless citizen, who, disregarding civil eminence, was engaged in the contemplation of the kingdom of God." In early manhood he appears in public, announces himself as the Messiah, and proclaims the kingdom of heaven (Matt. iii. 15; xi. 14, 15; xii. 6, 8, 28, 32; xxi. 1-13). But his conception of the Messiah's character, and consequently of the Messianic kingdom, seems to have differed materially from that which was popularly entertained. He made no account of royal lineage; he set up no claim as a descendant of David; he *Hennel, Origin of Christianity, page 442.

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