550 



LITERATURE, AMERICAN, IN 1879. 



flavored national style of rhetoric, which has 

 since too often degenerated into empty bom- 

 bast, and of keeping before the minds of the 

 people the inherent and ever-recurring prob- 

 lems of the American form of government. 

 The "Addresses and Orations" of Rufus Ohoate 

 (Little, Brown & Co.) preserve and exemplify 

 those characteristics of poetry and imagination 

 and harmonious flow, which at one time, to- 

 gether with a high moral inspiration, distin- 

 guished American oratory, and of which the 

 speeches of Rufus Choate furnish some of 

 the purest, if not the most brilliant examples. 

 Webster's more famous speeches have also been 

 published, accompanied with a critical essay 

 by E. P. Whipple (Little, Brown & Co.). 



Several of the Biographies and Memoirs pub- 

 lished during the year are chiefly valuable 

 through the light they shed upon history. 

 " Petrus Martyr " is an account of the earliest 

 historian of discoveries in America, the fruit 

 of researches in American libraries, written by 

 H. A. Schumacher, German Consul-General, 

 and issued by the German publisher E. Steiger 

 of New York. The Diary of Judge Sewell, 

 which presents a vivid picture of lite and man- 

 ners in Boston at the end of the seventeenth 

 and the beginning of the eighteenth century, 

 has been often used by colonial historians, but 

 has been recently published in its entirety for 

 the first time by the Massachusetts Historical 

 Society. "The New Puritan," by James S. Pike 

 (Harper & Brothers), is an account of Robert 

 Pike, a man ahead of his age who lived in the 

 days of Salem witchcraft. J. N. Arnold's 

 " Life of Benedict Arnold " (Chicago, Jansen, 

 McClurg & Co.) contains new facts, and is an 

 attempt to rescue the name of the impetuous 

 and selfish officer from the obloquy which has 

 attached to it. " The Life of Albert Gallatin," 

 by Henry Adams, and the " Writings of Albert 

 Gallatin " (J. B. Lippincott & Co.), contain, 

 though in an excessively voluminous form, a 

 valuable store of information upon an eventful 

 formative epoch in American history, and in- 

 troduce to the reader a man who, from his high 

 character and the important part he played in 

 politics, deserves not to be forgotten. " The 

 Life and Epoch of Hamilton," by Judge George 

 Shea (Houghton, Osgood & Co.), is a pane- 

 gyrical essay upon the life and works of that 

 statesman, containing much biographical infor- 

 mation that is new concerning the earlier por- 

 tion of his career. " The Life of David Glasgow 

 Farragut," by his son Loyall Farragut (D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co.), is a book of deep and varied in- 

 terest ; the great naval commander is made to 

 tell the story of his own life, as far as pos- 

 sible, by extracts from his diaries, clear and 

 vigorous in style, manly and elevated in tone, 

 and full of individuality, containing life-like 

 sketches of the principal officers in the Ameri- 

 can navy, and spirited accounts of the sea-en- 

 gagements from the war of 1812 down to the 

 close of the civil war ; it is a valuable contri- 

 bution to American history, as well as a biog- 



raphy of a man of rare force and purity of 

 character. "John Lothrop Motley," by" Dr. 

 Oliver Wendell Holmes (Houghton, Osgood & 

 Co.), is a generous tribute of praise to a dead 

 friend, and a vindication of Motley's character 

 and conduct as a diplomatist. " Destruction 

 and Reconstruction " is a book of personal re- 

 miniscences of the war of secession by Gen- 

 eral Richard Taylor, of the Confederate Army 

 (D. Appleton & Co.). The "Memoir of S. S. 

 Prentiss " (Charles Scribner's Sons) preserves 

 the memory of a once famous wit and orator, 

 and reveals the social condition of the South- 

 west in the ante-bellum times. The " Personal 

 Memoirs " of E. D. Mansfield is a volume of 

 interesting reminiscences by a vetern Western 

 journalist (Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co.). 

 A most interesting volume of reminiscences 

 relating to the history of the Napoleonic era is 

 the " Memoirs of Madame de Remusat," con- 

 taining remarkable revelations concerning Na- 

 poleon, and novel details of the secret history 

 of the First Empire, and interesting pictures 

 of court life (D. Appleton & Co.). "Bismarck 

 in the Franco-German War, 1871 " (Charles 

 Scribner's Sons), is a translation of a diary 

 kept by the Chancellor's secretary, Dr. Moritz 

 Busch, the Boswellian minuteness and unre- 

 serve of which has aided in rendering the per- 

 sonality of the German statesman much more 

 familiar to the world than it was before the 

 publication of this curious work. Two French 

 works on the late President Thiers and the 

 events in which he was a prominent actor have 

 been published in translations: "The Govern- 

 ment of M. Thiers, from the 8th of February, 

 1871, to the 24th of May, 1873," by Jules Si- 

 mon (Charles Scribner's Sons), and " The Life 

 of Louis Adolphe Thiers," by Francois le Goff 

 (G. P. Putnam's Sons). 



A few of the biographical publications of the 

 year, of literary, artistic, or personal interest, 

 are equally worthy of note. "Hector Berlioz" 

 is a collection of the letters and musical criti- 

 cisms of an erratic and impetuous man of 

 genius, who did much for the development of 

 musical art both as a critic and as a composer ; 

 these interesting memoirs are translated by 

 William F. Apthorp, and published by Henry 

 Holt & Co. Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble's 

 " Records of a Girlhood " (Henry Holt & Co.) 

 is a pleasant volume of reminiscences of intel- 

 lectual society in England and America fifty 

 years ago, recalling the very life and atmos- 

 phere of the past generation. An agreeable 

 volume of literary biography by Professor Hjal- 

 mar H. Boyesen, published by Charles Scrib- 

 ner's Sons, deals with the lives and works of 

 Goethe and Schiller, reflecting the spirit and 

 tenor of German criticism ; it is a work which 

 bears the impress of sincere and sympathetic 

 labor, written in a clear and masterly style. A 

 series of biographies of "American Authors" 

 is published by Sheldon & Co. of New York. 

 " A Life Worth Living," by Leonard Woolsey 

 Bacon (New York, Anson D. F. Randolph & 



