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favorites with decorations." "Id maxime formidolosum, privati hominis nomen supra principis attolli."

MEMOIR OF CAPT. BATE.*-The subject of this memoir, a captain in the British navy, was killed during the attack upon Canton, in December, 1857, while attempting to set the ladder for the escalade.

According to the correspondent of the London Times, he had volunteered on a service "of imminent danger," at a time when "a storm of balls and rockets" was coming from the wall. "He was in the act of taking the distance from the ground to the top of the wall, with his sextant, when a shot from a gingall struck him in the right breast. He fell straight on the ground, and never moved afterwards." Such was the untimely end, at the age of thirty-seven years, of one of the most manly and courageous men in the British navy, who was loved by every one in the fleet, "from the admiral down to the youngest boy."

But it is something higher than personal valor, and professional capacity, and the stirring details of a British sailor's life, that gives an interest to this memoir. Besides all these, there is the exhibition of a noble Christian character in one who daily sought, in all that he did, to act in a way that would be pleasing to God. The story of his persevering faithfulness in the discharge of duties which took him for years "out of the pale of civilization," and of the cheerful spirit with which he met repeated disappointments and trials, and of the triumph of his faith in all, cannot fail to encourage and strengthen every reader who sympathizes with him in the great object of life.

PARTON'S LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON.t-Mr. Parton gained a not very enivable reputation by his last literary work in which he attempted. to white-wash the character of Aaron Burr, and to hold up that bad man as a study and a model for the imitation of the young men of America. We confess that that book has disposed us to receive with considerable hesitation any estimate which he may hereafter give of the moral character of any man. However, he has undertaken a new work of greater magnitude and importance than any he has ever attempted before; and the first volume of what is to be an

* A Memoir of Capt. W. T. Bate, R. N.; by Rev. JOHN BAILLIE. Gonv. and Caius College, Cambridge. 12mo. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1859. pp. 278.

Life of Andrew Jackson. In three volumes. By JAMES PARTON. Vol. 1. New York: Mason & Brothers. 1860. Large octavo. pp. 636.

extended life of Gen. Jackson, is now before the public.

We are

willing, as far as the new book is concerned, to let by-gones be bygones, and to judge it on its own merits.

A biographer could hardly find among our political men of this century, another man around whom gathers more popular interest than around the "old hero" whose name has been a watchword during half the existence of our nation in its military and political history, and a tower of strength to the political party to which we have been ever opposed. We will give Mr. Parton credit for seeming to be duly impressed with the magnitude of his work, and for indefatigable labor in procuring and digesting the materials of his history. We will let him speak for himself and describe some of the difficulties he has experienced :

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"For many months I was immersed in this unique, bewildering, collection, reading endless newspapers, pamphlets, books, without arriving at any conclusion whatever. If any one, at the end of a year even, had asked what I had yet discovered respecting General Jackson, I might have answered thus, Andrew Jackson, I am given to understand, was a patriot and a traitor. He was one of the greatest of generals, and wholly ignorant of the art of war. A writer brilliant, elegant, eloquent, without being able to compose a correct sentence, or spell words of four syllables. The first of statesmen, he never devised, he never framed a measure. He was the most candid of men, and was capable of the profoundest dissimulation. A most law-defying, law-obeying citizen. A stickler for discipline, he never hesitated to disobey his superior. A democratic autocrat. An urbane savage. An atrocious saint.' So difficult is it to attain information respecting a man whom two-thirds of his fellow-citizens deified, and the other third vilified for the space of twelve years or more.

"In this condition of doubt, I set out on a tour of the southern and southwestern states, in search of knowledge. At Washington I conversed with politicians of the last generation who have now no longer an interest in concealing the truth. I visited North Carolina, where General Jackson was born, and where he studied law and was admitted to the bar; South Carolina, where he grew from infancy into manhood; Tennessee, where he lived so long and so happily; Alabama, the scene of his early exploits; and other States, a third of the Union in all; receiving in each the recollections of men and women, bond and free, who knew him well, knew him at all periods of his life, lived near him and with him, served him and were served by him. One woman still

lingers in extreme old age, who thinks she remembers him an infant in his mother's arms. With her I conversed; as also with the gentleman who caught the hero's head when it fell forward in death. I listened also, to many who were always opposed to the man, and still like him not. Manuscript letters of the General's in great numbers were freely given me to copy, and other manuscripts, only less valuable than these. Old files of Tennessee newspapers came to light, that were full of Jackson and his early wild career. It seemed sometimes in Nashville as if the city had formed itself into a Committee of the Whole, for the purpose of overwhelming the stranger with papers, reminiscences, and hospitality. "And thus it was that contradictions were reconciled, that mysteries were revealed, and that the truth was made apparent." pp. vii-viii.

From this first volume, the history is only brought down to about the close of 1814, just before the battle of New Orleans. We shall, therefore, reserve our comments and criticisms until we have more of the work before us. The volume is a beautiful specimen of typography, and its appearance is very creditable to the publishers.

REMINISCENC ENCES OF RUFUS CHOATE.*-Mr. Parker has already been favorably known to the public and to some of our readers by his "Golden Age of American Oratory." He had unusual opportunities of intimate acquaintance with the splendid New England orator, such opportunities as were granted to no person beside. He knew him as a lawyer, having been an inmate of his office for years. He knew him as a friend, having been admitted often to his house and to his most familiar friendship. He began to know him when he was in the full meridian of his glory and in the unabated freshness of his powers, and when he himself was in the first flush of that ardor which attends the beginning of a promising professional life. He admired and loved Mr. Choate, and yet he studied him in all the peculiarities of his most wonderful genius and in the secret of his wonderful power. He made it his practice to record sketches of conversations with him from time to time, and to watch his memorable deeds. Besides his personal reminiscences, he has availed himself of those of other members of the Boston bar, and by their aid and his own minutes he has sketched several of his leading arguments. As the product of these opportunities he has given us a fascinating volume,—a volume which brings before us the man as he acted, and stud

* Reminiscences of Rufus Choate, the great American Advocate. By EDWARD G. PARKER. New York: Mason & Brothers. 1860. 12mo. pp. 522.

ied, and thought, and as he was,-literally a prodigy of energy, and of fine and splendid achievements.

We do not blame Mr. Parker for treating the subject of his volume with enthusiasm. How could he do otherwise? But his enthusiasm is not servile, nor does his high estimate of Mr. Choate's powers blind him to the exaggerations of his intellect and of his eloquence. It is with eminent propriety that he calls him the great American advocate; for in being a successful advocate all his energies were absorbed, and to attain success in his case the whole splendor and power of his intellectual wealth and force were profusely lavished. We cannot give to his ideal our highest praise. We cannot approve even his intellectual standard of greatness. He had been far greater as a scholar, as a citizen, as a thinker, and as a man, and we venture to add, as an advocate also, had he devoted himself with less passionate-we had almost said with a less frantic-energy, to the single aim of being an advocate. But notwithstanding this defect of judgment in his aim and standard of intellectual life, he was a magnificent man.

MEMOIR OF REV. HENRY LOBDELL, M. D.*-If all religious biography were as frank and free from the charge of being over-colored by the partiality of friendship or partisanship, as the work above named, one would have less reason to find fault with the great multiplication of such publications. After turning over the leaves of this volume, we cannot doubt that the life of Dr. Lobdell presented an example of single-hearted consecration of the whole being to Christ, and of true Christian heroism too valuable to be entirely lost to the world by his early transition to a higher sphere, or to be circumscribed in its influence within the narrow bounds of personal recollection; and it is a happy circumstance that it fell to the lot of so discriminating and honest, yet appreciating and sympathizing a biographer, to tell its story. Our object in this brief notice forbids us to give even an outline of Dr. Lobdell's career, short as it was, scarcely ten years from the very commencement of his collegiate education, of which less than three years were spent in active service as a missionary-for every day of his missionary life seems to have been full of incident, and the forces

* Memoir of Rev. Henry Lobdell, M. D., late Missionary of the American Board at Mosul, including the Early History of the Assyrian Mission. By Rev. W. S. TYLER, D. D., Graves Professor of Greek in Amherst College. Published by the American Tract Society, No. 28 Cornhill, Boston. 12mo. pp. 414.

of his character were continually developing themselves. We cannot, therefore, do better than to extract from the volume before us a few paragraphs in which the author himself sums up what he has so well exhibited. Our readers will thus learn most satisfactorily what they may expect to gain by a perusal of the memoir.

"Of the character of Dr. Lobdell, it is hoped, little need be said at the close of this extended memoir. He has spoken it out and acted it out on every page, till it is as perspicuous to the reader as it was transparent in itself. Unless we are quite mistaken, the readers of these pages have been, all the while, not only observing the conduct, but looking into the heart, of a man, a scholar, and a Christian-a real and true man without any sham, or show, or cant, or false pretence whatsoever—a whole and (to use a favorite word of the Doctor himself) live man, many-sided, and alive on all sides to everything above, beneath, and around him a self-made and self-controlled man, (so far as one can be in human society and under the divine government,) content, nay, resolved, to be himself, and not a mere duplicate of somebody else, conscientiously determined to be what God intended him to be, ambitiously aspiring to become all that God made him capable of becoming, governed by his own reason, and conscience, and will, with a sovereignty as absolute in himself as it was exclusive of the dictation of others; a scholar, enthusiastic and comprehensive rather than accurate or profound, loving knowledge for its own sake, and at the same time seeking it in the full persuasion that all knowledge is useful; fond of philological and antiquarian researches, but exploring the dusty past chiefly in search of wisdom for the living present, and rejoicing in all the discoveries of science, as not only consistent with, but parts of, the science of God;-a Christian, not by creed and profession only, but in the deepest convictions of his heart, and in the whole spirit and tenor of his life, taught not by the schools, or even by the church, but by the Word and Spirit of God, and making it his daily business to do the will of Christ; a Christian physician, liking his profession well enough in itself, and laboring in it with much success, but valuing it chiefly as a means of alleviating the distresses and saving the souls of men; a Christian minister of the Pauline stamp, reasoning with Jews and Gentiles, in the synagogues and in the marketplaces, week-days as well as Sundays, out of the Scriptures and from the light of nature; becoming all things to all men, passionately desirous to know everything, yet in everything knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified; a Christian missionary, who really believed and acted as if he believed that Pagans and Mobammedans, and mere nominal Christians, were traveling the broad road to destruction, and that nothing could save them but a living faith in Christ;-a Christian patriot, glorying in his birthright as an American, and looking to his country as, under God, the hope of the world, and, for that very reason, longing to see his country's sin and shame wiped away;-a young American, with all the virtues, and not altogether free from the faults, which pertain to that fast age and race; a Christian philanthropist, fully convinced that the Gospel of Christ is the remedy, and the only remedy, for all the ills that flesh is heir to, and therefore rallying all his own powers, and summoning the best energies of the best minds in Christendom, to determined, unwearied, and self-sacrificing efforts for its universal application." pp. 401-402.

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