more we are permitted to scrutinize his private life and see him as he appeared in his own family, the more do we find to respect, to honor, and to love.

His

The book, whose title we give above, should be read by every American. It shows what Washington was as a private citizen, as a farmer, and as the head of a family. Our readers are all doubtless aware that the author, George Washington Parke Custis, Esq., who recently died, (Oct. 11th, 1857,) at Arlington House, Va., was a grandson of Mrs Washington, and an adopted son of Washington himself. home was therefore at Mount Vernon from his early childhood till the death of his foster father, when he was in the nineteenth year of his age. The reminiscences of such a man cannot but be of interest. He describes Washington as he appeared at home, at Mount Vernon; his personal appearance; his dress; his habits; his manner of spending his time;as he appeared also at Philadelphia and New York, when they were the seats of government; with full accounts of all his household arrangements in both places. He gives his recollections of "Mary, the mother of Washington" of his grandmother, Martha Washington; of the various disinguished guests who visited at Mount Vernon; of the servants, with a whole chapter of anecdotes respecting "Bishop" and "Billy," the favorite old body servants of the General.

I'refixed to the reminiscences there is a very interesting sketch of Mr. Custis himself, together with some account of the traditions of the family respecting their ancestors, prepared by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Custis Lee. The letters are also published (for the first time) which Washington wrote to Mr. Custis when he was a student in college at Princeton, and afterwards at Annapolis; and also those which Washington wrote during the Revolution to John Parke Custis, the father of the author of the Memoirs.

The volume presents a beautiful typographical appearance, is illustrated with several fine engravings, and has received the editorial supervision of Benson J. Lossing, Esq., who has added very copious historical and explanatory notes.

We are confident that when the nature of the contents of this book is known it will have a vast circulation in all parts of the country.

PARTON'S LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON.*-There can be no question

* Life of Andrew Jackson. In three volumes. By JAMES PARTON. Vol. II. New York: Mason Brothers. 1860. Svo. pp. 672.

that this life of Andrew Jackson will find plenty of readers. The second volume is now before the public, and well sustains the expectations which were awakened by the first. In that, the style was lively and chatty, and occasionally there was a certain air of nonchalance that was quite fascinating, but hardly consistent with our commonly received ideas of the dignity of history and biography. Yet the descriptions of the wild adventures which were so frequent in Jackson's early career were exceedingly spirited and life-like. The chapter in which the story was told of the duel in which Dickinson was killed, is not surpassed in fearful interest by anything in the whole range of fiction; yet it seems probable that the account is truthful throughout. In this second volume the same power of vivid description is everywhere seen. Men, scenes, and events, are brought up before the reader with more than the distinctness of photography. The volume bears the marks, too, of unwearied labor on the part of the author, who has evidently sought to make himself thoroughly acquainted with everything that would illustrate the life of the hero of his story, and to imbue himself with the spirit of the times. It opens with a graphic description of the appearance of the Delta at the mouth of the Mississippi; of New Orleans, and the condition of that city at the time when General Jackson entered it, in December, 1814, to defend it against the forces of General Packenham. A minute and detailed account then follows, extending over more than two hundred additional pages, in which the full history is given of all that was done for the protection of the city; of the defeat of the British in the famous battle of the eighth of January, 1815; and of the final expulsion of the enemy from the American shores. The history of this period is very much extended, but is so enlivened with stirring incidents, skillfully introduced, that the interest of the reader is kept up throughout.

But at this point commences the more difficult part of the work;the recounting of the history of that series of bold and high-handed assumptions of power which followed the victory over Packenham. "The execution of the six militia men." "The arrests at New Orleans." "The Seminole war." "The execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister." "The invasion of Florida and the Spanish territory." Now Gen. Jackson begins to display on a more prominent field of action, than ever before, that willingness to assume responsibility, that iron will, and all those peculiar characteristics, which soon called forth the severe censures of a large portion of the people of the United States,

and made even his friends watch his career with fear and anxietyuncertain what he would do next.

But the difficulties with Spain are adjusted. Florida becomes ours. Jackson returns to the "Hermitage," and the quiet of his own home. Here the second volume closes, just at that most interesting period— the opening of the Presidential campaign of 1824. The political life of Gen. Jackson is thus reserved for the concluding third volume. We doubt not that all who have followed the author thus far, will look with interest for its appearance. Till then we wait before we give our views at length.

LAMARTINE'S LIFE OF MARY STUART.-A life of Mary Stuart, translated from the unpublished manuscripts of Lamartine, has been added to the series of biographies that Messrs. Sheldon & Co. are bringing out under the editorial supervision of Mr. O. W. Wight. Few of the biographers of the unhappy Queen of Scotland seem to have understood, so well as Lamartine, the character of that beautiful daughter of the Guises, who, after being educated in the voluptuous court of the Valois, was called to reign as a legitimate sovereign over a nation of stern Scotchmen and rigid Presbyterians. Not that Lamartine understood John Knox, or Presbyterians. This was not to be expected. But with the quick wit of a Frenchman he understood the character of the daughter of his country woman Marie de Lorraine. Her youth, her beauty, her utter unfitness for the position to which she was called, her sad fate, all move his pity and awaken his sympathy. But true to history, yet with all the tact of his nation, he tells the whole story of her unfortunate career, her imprudences, her crimes; and sums up all with these words:"we do not absolve, we sympathize; our pity is not absolution, but rather approaches to love; we try to find excuses for her conduct in the ferocious and dissolute manner of the age; in that education, depraved, sanguinary and fanatical, which she received at the Court of Valois; in her youth, her beauty, her love. We judge notwe only relate."

THE LIFE OF JAMES WATT.-We have in this volume an elabo

*Life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. By ALPHONSO DE LAMARTINE. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1860. 18mo. pp. 275.

The Life of James Watt. With Selections from his Correspondence. By JAMES PATRICK MUIRHEAD, M. A. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1859. pp. 424.

rate and highly interesting memoir, by a very competent hand, of one of the most remarkable men of modern times; a mechanic, indeed, but one who, by the force of his extraordinary genius, attained the highest rank among men of learning and science, and gave his name to posterity as one of the leading benefactors of his race. It would be difficult to name a man who, single-handed, as it were, and from the resources of his own fertile intellect, has ever contributed more largely or more directly towards the development of individual and national wealth, and the general advancement of civilization, than the great Scotch Engineer, who, by his series of brilliant inventions for the improvement of the steam engine, gave to the world that most wonderful product of ingenuity and science essentially as we now see it-the daily performer, for man's benefit, of an aggregate of labor many times the equivalent of that of all the millions of human hands on the globe. Such a man touches at once the readiest spring of human gratitudeself-interest; and his fame becomes coëxtensive with human civilization. The life of such a man is a suggestive study, not only for those engaged in similar pursuits, but for all who would obtain a glimpse of some of those steps by which God, through the inspiration of genius in man, creates, as it were, the means or instruments which he is continually using in molding human affairs, and working out the great problems of his Providential government over the world. Especially is this true when, as in the case of Watt, his private virtues, weight of character, and high attainments in many and diverse departments of human learning, combine to form an appropriate setting for the brilliant achievements which give him eminence in his chosen sphere. The able author of the biography before us, as a kinsman of the illustrious inventor, enjoyed the most ample facilities for collecting materials, and he has given us, in addition to full details of the life of Watt, as necessary accompaniments, a history of the steam engine, an account of the controversy respecting the discovery of the composition of water, (now universally accredited to Watt,) and many other matters of interest pertaining to science and the useful arts.

LIFE OF BISHOP WILSON.* -Whoever will look and compare the two portraits of Bishop Wilson which accompany this volume, can

* The Life of Daniel Wilson, D. D., Bishop of Calcutta, and Metropolitan of India. By JostAH BATEMAN, M. A., Rector of North Cray, Kent, his son-in-law and first chaplain. With Portraits, Map, and Illustrations. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1860. 8vo.

hardly fail to be attracted by them to a further examination of the book itself. One of these portraits represents him in his early manhood full of the strength, the fervor, and the manly love of right and Christian truth, which he evinced, not once or twice but often, even before his appointment to the conspicuous position which he afterwards filled. The other shows him as he appeared just before his active and useful life of nearly four score years was ended, and when he had been for nearly a quarter of a century the first ecclesiastical dignitary in India. It is beautiful to see how, as he grew in years, a humbler, calmer and more selfless expression softened the energy and vehemence which we trace in the earlier portrait,-how manifestly the inner man was growing in likeness to its Divine pattern,—and how the light of life which shone within him shone also outwardly, upon his countenance. In both pictures there is the evidence of uncommon force of personal character, and of remarkable intellectual vigor,—but in the later one there is, to a singular degree, the beauty which comes from a life-long devotion to Christian duty, and a life-long experience of Christian peace. We feel at once the natural character and the religious history of such a man must have been of more than ordinary interest.

And so indeed it was with Bishop Wilson. We have seldom read the record of any man's religious experiences with more of interest and profit than those which are here given in copious extracts from the Bishop's diary and private letters. His earnest belief and constant defense of a spiritual and practical Christianity as contrasted with the lifelessness of mere forms and the outward adherence to any grand ecclesiastical establishment, are easily understood when we find how thorough, how deep and searching, was his own experience of the power of Divine grace. No wonder that he, whose soul had been the seat of such fierce and long protracted conflict and who had been born into the kingdom of God through such deep penitence and sorrow, almost deepening to despair, should have withstood, with all his might, the dangerous views of that party in the English Church, before whose dogma (we use his own words) "all the religion of Jesus Christ fades away,-regeneration is reduced to baptism-then explained away-then lost sight of." No wonder that he always, in whatever place he found himself, labored with diligence and with great singleness of purpose, to promote the progress of pure and undefiled religion. No wonder that from almost the beginning of the history of modern missions he was conspicuous among those who supported and encouraged them. No wonder that afterwards he gladly entered into the foreign missionary field and gave