436 



LITEEATUEE AND LITEEAEY PEOGEESS IN 1872. 



the selection of materials the author shows a 

 strange want of consideration for the feelings 

 of Mr. Lincoln's family, and it may he douhted 

 whether his insight into Mr. Lincoln's charac- 

 ter was equal to his knowledge of the facts of 

 his life. "The Life of John J. Crittenden, 

 witli Selections from his Correspondence and 

 Speeches," edited by his daughter, Mrs. Chap- 

 man Coleman, recalls it is to be feared, for a 

 short time only the memory of a statesman 

 and jurist who in his day deserved well of his 

 country, but left no durable mark upon the 

 national history. The same observation is 

 applicable to the memoirs of a less distin- 

 guished man the "Autobiography of Amos 

 Kendall," whose political career was not par- 

 ticularly brilliant, but whose later connection 

 with the development of the magnetic tele- 

 graph was a higher title to remembrance. It 

 is not often that a man's life is first written 

 two centuries after his death. But " The Life 

 of Henry Dunster, the First President of Har- 

 vard College," by Jeremiah Chaplin, D. D., 

 records a career and delineates a character 

 worthy of reverent admiration, and which, for 

 reasons apparent in the record, failed of due re- 

 cognition by contemporaries. Dr. Chaplin has 

 made a book worthy of its subject. " Incidents 

 and Anecdotes of the Eev. Edward T. Taylor, 

 for over Forty Years Pastor of the Seamen's 

 Bethel, Boston," by Gilbert Haven, is an in- 

 adequate memorial of a strange pulpit genius. 

 The inadequacy is not the writer's fault. 

 " Father Taylor " powerfully affected not mere- 

 ly the perceptions and judgment, but the ima- 

 gination, of those who heard him. This must 

 be conceded, for the testimony is various and 

 unanimous, from men whose praise is an honor, 

 and whose penetration was not likely to be 

 deceived. But no report of any thing he ever 

 said produces the same effect, or any thing 

 like it, upon the reader. His biographer tells 

 the outward history of his life, with striking 

 evidences of the impression he produced on 

 others ; and some of the anecdotes reveal the 

 man, while others merely reflect his moods, 

 pleasant or otherwise. 



Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic 

 Church in the United States. By E. H. Clark. 



The Character and Career of Francis Asbury, 

 Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. By Ed- 

 win L. Jones. 



Pillars in the Temple ; or. Sketches of Deceased 

 Laymen in the Methodist Episcopal Church. By 

 Eev. W. C. Smith. 



A Western Pioneer ; or, Incidents of the Life and 

 Times of the Eev. Alfred Brunsou, D. D. Written 

 by Himself. 



The Life of General Grant. By J. S. C. Abbott. 



Keel and Saddle. A Eetrospect of Forty Years in 

 the Naval and Military Service of the United States. 

 By Joseph W. Eevere. 



Forty Years' Fight with the Drink Demon. By 

 Charles Jewett, M. D. 



The Life of Horace Greeley. By James Parton. 



Memoir of Colonel Charles Stewart Todd. By G. 

 W. Griffin. 



Autobiography and Journal. By Eev. Ileman 

 Bangs. 



Life of Ethan Allen. By Henry W. De Puy. 



Walter Powell, of Melbourne and London. Mer- 

 chant, Philanthropist, and Christian. By L. P. 

 Brockett, M. D. 



POETRY. Our elder poets show no signs of 

 frost upon their laurels. Whittier's volume, 

 " The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and other Poems," 

 contains some of the choicest work he has 

 wrought. The principal poem has not the 

 charm of " moving incident," but the sketches 

 of character and of scenery are drawn with 

 masterly skill, and the whole is suffused in 

 softened light and an atmosphere of soothing 

 calm. Some of the minor pieces are among 

 his most striking compositions. The comple- 

 tion of Bryant's version of the Odyssey adds 

 another to the undying treasures of English 

 verse. And Longfellow's "Three Books of 

 Song " has given pleasure to a multitude of 

 admirers on two continents, Nor have our 

 younger poets been idle. Bayard Taylor, in 

 his "Masque of the Gods," evinced a high de- 

 gree of imaginative power and command of 

 the resources of poetic art, with a daring 

 which in some passages jars upon a not over- 

 scrupulous religious reverence. J. G. Holland 

 is conquering for himself an honorable recog- 

 nition among our poets. His immense popu- 

 larity has made him the laureate of the sover- 

 eign people. The verdict of the many finds 

 now an echo in the "fit audience, though 

 few," by whom criticism is dispensed. " The 

 Marble Prophecy, and Other Poems" par- 

 ticularly some of the "other poems" have 

 met with a generous appreciation. Our sturdy 

 satirist, J. G. Saxe, whose robust verse fitly 

 expresses both his "sound roundabout sense" 

 and a playful fancy, gives us "Fables and Le- 

 gends of Many Countries, rendered in Ehyme." 

 That unique genius, Mrs. A. D. T. Tvliitney, a 

 writer combining quaint fancy, unexpected- 

 ness of thought, and a faint tinge of mysticism 

 that reminds us sometimes of Hawthorne in 

 his lighter moods, puts forth a volume of 

 poems under the odd title "Pansies '...for 

 Thoughts.' " Some of her pieces are so slight 

 as to be unsubstantial, and some are obscure, 

 and when unriddled yield a meaning that 

 hardly compensates for the trouble. But most 

 are of such merit as will add to her already 

 enviable reputation. Mr. C. G. Leland, after 

 his success in dialect, returns to the vernac- 

 ular in a volume entitled "The Music Lesson 

 of Confucius, and Other Poems." A new ven- 

 ture in literature, "Out of Door Ehymes," by 

 Eliza Sproat Turner, might be called a book 

 of high promise, if the rare finish of some of 

 the pieces did not suggest rather an ample 

 fulfilment of promise. Another name, new in 

 poetic authorship, is Mr. Charles Frederick 

 Johnson, who appears as translator of Lucre- 

 tius into English verse. He shows a degree of 

 skill in the management of blank verse with 

 occasional marks of carelessness or of capri- 

 cious license to raise a question whether 

 there is not here an augury of success in origi- 

 nal composition. " Mireio, a Provencal Poem," 



