458 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[APRIL, 



which romance has made its own. Never 

 was the study of facts more indispen- 

 sable than since writers of imagination 

 have blended their fancies so intimately 

 with realities as they have done of late. 

 Thev are perpetually misleading, partly 

 by their own misconceptions, and partly 

 from their incapacity, often, to keep 

 their representations within the limits 

 of congruity . The study of history be- 

 comes daily more imperative, to prevent 

 the confusion of fact and fiction, which 

 must be the consequence of the grave 

 and imposing tone taken by novelists. 

 No harm will be done by the romance 

 writer, where the reader is acquainted 

 with the spirit of the times, and the 

 characters exhibited. Just as no mis- 

 take results from the representation of 

 modern manners, where a previous and 

 personal acquaintance exists ; because, 

 in that case, the reader enjoys the illu- 

 sion, even while he discriminates. No- 

 body, in short, should venture upon his- 

 torical novels without first possessing 

 himself of facts or, at least, of what 

 are, till they get corrected, regarded as 

 such. Such sketches as these of the 

 Family Library will prove most conve- 

 nient little books for precluding the er- 

 roneous impressions to which we have 

 been alluding. 



Lays from the East. By Robert Calder 

 Campbell. A volume of poetry from the 

 East, with which the author may pro- 

 bably have beguiled the weariness of some 

 solitary station up the country. Some 

 of the pieces they are all short are 

 very beautiful, and the whole of them 

 considerably above the average of cur- 

 rent versification. The specimen is 

 taken almost at random 

 Silent she stood her white hands on her breast 

 Clasped, with the strength of pain ; and o'er her 



cheek 



A crimson blush was seen to come and go, 

 Like lightning bursting from the curling cloud, 

 Making all bright, then leaving it again, 

 In all its waste of darkness. Lovely still 

 She was, though wild; and on her eyes there 



shone 



A fierceness, not her own, by madness sent 

 To soil that gentle nature. She had loved, 

 And wedded one who was not what he seemed ; 

 For 'neath the form of noblest manhood 

 He hid the spirit of a demon-fiend, 

 And in the ardent lover soon she found 

 The scourge domestic che home-paining tyrant. 

 It was too much for her her breast, though 



meek 



As is the lambkin's in its mirthful mood, 

 Had yet drep wells of passion and of thought, 

 And they did flood ere long. 



Endymion asleep reminds us of Keats, 

 not only in subject, but in manner. It 

 is equal to the very best of Keats a 

 little strained like his, but soft and 

 sweet as voluptuousness can conceive 



Endymion! mine own Endymion, sleep! 

 Sleep, still as sea flowers in the silent depths, 

 Where Naiads come not ! Sleep, soundly as birds 

 That crush rich grapes in wantonness, until 

 Intoxication seize them ! Sleep, dear hoy ! 

 Soft as young cygnets. Sleep, that I may breathe 

 The kisses of a goddess on thy brow 

 Kisses more sweet than bees of Hybla sip 

 From spice-balls on Hymettus sweeter far 

 Than those the incense-breathing born inhales 

 From lily-buds and scented cinnamon ! 

 Oh! sleep, my shepherd swain! my beautiful! 

 That I may stamp the signet of my love 

 My fervent, burning love, in one long kiss 

 Upon those perfumed lips. Oh ye who know 

 What 'tis the secret transport thus to glide 

 Upon the slumbers of the one you love, &c. 



A Grammar of the German Language, 

 ly C. F. Becker, M.D. Becker's Gram- 

 mar, though logically reasoned, and con- 

 sistently arranged, will never become 

 popular among English folks, were it 

 only for the new terms and technicalities 



which the author has chosen to adopt 



as if to repel the student at the thresh- 

 hold. To a German, accustomed to ap* 

 plication, and with abundance of leisure, 

 new terms for an old science present no 

 obstacle ; but an Englishman, who knows 

 what he has called from his childhood a 

 substantive and an adjective, has no no- 

 tion of confounding them both under 

 the mystical term of national words, and 

 other old acquaintances under that of 

 relational words. Dr. Becker, indeed, 

 gives us his word that the difficulties of 

 this terminology of his are but trifling 

 are all in the outset, as if that was nothing 

 at all will soon vanish, as he has him- 

 self had ample experience in the course 

 of ten years teaching Englishmen. It 

 may be so, but every body cannot 

 go to Offenbach on the Maine, to secure 

 his personal services. The doctor, how- 

 ever, plumes himself, especially, upon 

 his renouncing these our old fashions of 

 grammars built upon antique Latin ones 

 his depends wholly upon the dictates 

 of nature. He goes to the roots of 

 things, and these roots are all verbs. 

 Of course verbs might be expected to 

 take precedence in his grammar, but 

 they do not. The derivations, primary 

 and secondary, of nouns and adjectives 

 in sundry shapes, come first, and then 

 follow, by some unaccountable inver- 

 sion, the roots in the disguise of verbs. 



Then follow other classes of words, 



which do not, however, differ essentially 

 from the old-fashioned " parts of speech," 

 with which the greater part of the world 

 are well content, and manage, more- 

 over, to get up, with them, a foreign 

 language, sufficiently for common pur- 

 poses, and not one in a thousand requires 

 more. The doctor is fearfully learned, 

 and subtilizes till the reader loses his 

 way in a cloud of discriminations. 



