CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
_In One Volume, with a finely engraved portrait, from an original picture by Henry Inman._ _Cloth Gilt_, $2 00.
Contents.
Milton, Machiavelli, Dryden, History, Hallam"s Const.i.tutional History, Southey"s Colloquies on Society, Moore"s Life of Byron, Southey"s Bunyan"s Pilgrim"s Progress. Croker"s Boswell"s Life of Johnson, Lord Nugent"s Memoirs of Hampden, Nare"s Memoirs of Lord Burghley, Dumont"s Recollections of Mirabeau, Lord Mahon"s War of the Succession, Walpole"s Letters to Sir H. Maun, Thackaray"s History of Earl Chatham, Lord Bacon, Mackintosh"s History of the Revolution of England, Sir John Malcolm"s Life of Lord Clive. Life and Writings of Sir W. Temple, Church and State, Ranke"s History of the Popes, Cowley and Milton, Mitford"s History of Greece, The Athenian Orators, Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, Lord Holland, Warren Hastings, Frederic the Great, Lays of Ancient Rome, Madame D"Arblay, Addison, Barere"s Memoirs. Montgomery"s Poems, Civil Disabilities of the Jews, Mill on Government, Bentham"s Defence of Mill, Utilitarian Theory of Government, and Earl Chatham, second part, &c.
"It may now be asked by some sapient critics, Why make all this coil about a mere periodical essayist? Of what possible concern is it to anybody, whether Mr. Thomas Babington Macaulay be, or be not, overrun with faults, since he is nothing more than one of the three-day immortals who contribute flashy and "taking" articles to a Quarterly Review? What great work has he written? Such questions as these might be put by the same men who place the Spectator, Tattler and Rambler among the British cla.s.sics yet judge of the size of a cotemporary"s mind by that of his book, and who can hardly recognize amplitude of comprehension, unless it be spread over the six hundred pages of octavos and quartos.--Such men would place Bancroft above Webster, and Sparks above Calhoun, Adams, and Everett--deny a posterity for Bryant"s Thanatopsis, and predict longevity to Pollok"s Course of Time. It is singular that the sagacity which can detect thought only in a state of dilution, is not sadly graveled when it thinks of the sententious aphorisms which have survived whole libraries of folios, and the little songs which have outrun, in the race of fame, so many enormous epics.--While it can easily be demonstrated that Macaulay"s writings contain a hundred-fold more matter and thought, than an equal number of volumes taken from what are called, _par eminence_, the "British Essayists," it is not broaching any literary heresy to predict, that they will sail as far down the stream of time, as those eminent members of the ill.u.s.trious family of British cla.s.sics."
II.
=ARCHIBALD ALISON.=
THE CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF ARCHIBALD ALISON, AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF EUROPE," In One Volume, 8vo with a portrait.
_Price_ $1 25.
CONTENTS.
Chateaubriand, Napoleon, Bossuet, Poland, Madame de Stael, National Monuments, Marshal Ney, Robert Bruce, Paris in 1814, The Louvre in 1814, Tyrol, France in 1833, Italy, Scott, Campbell and Byron, Schools of Design, Lamartine, The Copyright Question, Michelet"s France, Military Treason and Civic Soldiers, Arnold"s Rome, Mirabeau, Bulwer"s Athens, The Reign of Terror, The French Revolution of 1830, The Fall of Turkey, The Spanish Revolution of 1820, Karamsin"s Russia, Effects of the French Revolution of 1830, Desertion of Portugal, Wellington, Carlist Struggle in Spain, The Affghanistan Expedition, The Future, &c. &c.
III.
=SYDNEY SMITH.=
THE WORKS OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. Fine Edition. In One Volume, with a portrait. Price $1 00.
"Almost every thing he has written is so characteristic that it would be difficult to attribute it to any other man. The marked individual features and the rare combination of power displayed in his works, give them a fascination unconnected with the subject of which he treats or the general correctness of his views. He sometimes. .h.i.ts the mark in the white, he sometimes misses it altogether, for he by no means confines his pen to theories to which he is calculated to do justice; but whether he hits or misses, he is always sparkling and delightful. The charm of his writings is somewhat similar to that of Montaigne or Charles Lamb"--_North American Review._
IV.
=PROFESSOR WILSON.=
THE RECREATIONS OF =CHRISTOPHER NORTH.= In One Volume 8vo., first American Edition with a Portrait. Price $1 00.
CONTENTS.
Christopher in his Sporting Jacket--A Tale of Expiation--Morning Monologue--The Field of Flowers--Cottages--An Hour"s Talk about Poetry--Inch Cruin--A Day at Windermere--The Moors--Highland Snow-Storm--The Holy Child--Our Parish--Mayday--Sacred Poetry--Christopher in his Aviary--Dr. Kitchiner--Soliloquy on the Seasons--A Few Words on Thomson--The s...o...b..ll Bicker of Piedmont--Christmas Dreams--Our Winter Quarters--Stroll to Grafsmere--L"Envoy.
_Extract from Howitt"s "Rural Life."_
"And not less for that wonderful series of articles by Wilson, in Blackwood"s Magazine--_in their kind as truly amazing and as truly glorious as the romances of Scott or the poetry of Wordsworth_. Far and wide and much as these papers have been admired, wherever the English language is read, I still question whether any one man has a just idea of them as a whole."
V.
=Carlyle"s Miscellanies.=
CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS OF THOMAS CARLYLE. _In one 8vo.
volume, with a Portrait._ PRICE $1 75.
CONTENTS.
Jean Paul Friedrich Richter--State of German Literature--Werner--Goethe"s Helena--Goethe--Burns--Heyne--German Playwrights--Voltaire--Novalis--Signs of the Times--Jean Paul Friedrich Richter again--On History--Schiller--The Nibellungen Lied--Early German Literature--Taylor"s Historic Survey of German Poetry--Characteristics--Johnson--Death of Goethe--Goethe"s Works--Diderot--On History again--Count Cagliostro--Corn Law Rhymes--The Diamond Necklace--Mirabeau--French Parliamentary History--Walter Scott, &c. &c.
VI.
=TALFOURD & STEPHEN=
THE CRITICAL WRITINGS OF T. NOON TALFOURD AND JAMES STEPHEN WITH A FINELY ENGRAVED PORTRAIT. In One Volume, 8vo. Price $1 25.
_Contents of "Talfourd."_
Essays on British Novels and Romances, introductory to a series of Criticisms on the Living Novelists--Mackenzie, The Author of Waverley, G.o.dwin, Maturin, Rymer on Tragedy, Colley Cibber"s Apology for his Life, John Dennis"s Works, Modern Periodical Literature, On the Genius and Writings of Wordsworth, North"s Life of Lord Guilford, Hazlitt"s Lectures on the Drama, Wallace"s Prospects of Mankind, Nature and Providence, On Pulpit Oratory, Recollections of Lisbon, Lloyd"s Poems.
Mr. Oldaker on Modern Improvements, A Chapter on Time, On the Profession of the Bar, The Wine Cellar, Destruction of the Brunswick Theatre by Fire, First Appearance of Miss f.a.n.n.y Kemble, On the Intellectual Character of the late Wm. Hazlitt.
_Contents of "Stephen."_
Life of Wilberforce, Life of Whitfield and Froude, D"Aubigne"s Reformation, Life and Times of Baxter, Physical Theory of Another Life, The Port Royalists, Ignatius Loyola, Taylor"s Edwin the Fair.
"His (Talfourd"s) Critical writings manifest on every page a sincere, earnest and sympathizing love of intellectual excellence and moral beauty. The kindliness of temper and tenderness of sentiment with which they are animated, are continually suggesting pleasant thoughts of the author."--_North American Review._
VII.
LORD JEFFREY.
THE CRITICAL WRITINGS OF FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY.
_In One Volume 8vo., with a Portrait._
From a very able article in the North British Review we extract the following:
"It is a book not to be read only--but studied--it is a vast repository; or rather a system or inst.i.tute, embracing the whole circle of letters--if we except the exact sciences--and contains within itself, not in a desultory form, but in a well digested scheme, more original conceptions, bold and fearless speculation and just reasoning on all kinds and varieties of subjects than are to be found in any English writer with whom we are acquainted within the present or the last generation. ... His choice of words is unbounded and his felicity of expression, to the most impalpable shade of discrimination, almost miraculous. Playful, lively, and full of ill.u.s.tration, no subject is so dull or so dry that he cannot invest it with interest, and none so trifling that it cannot acquire dignity or elegance from his pencil.
Independently however, of mere style, and apart from the great variety of subjects embraced by his pen, the distinguishing feature of his writings, and that in which he excels his cotemporary reviewers, is the deep vein of practical thought which runs throughout them all."
VIII.
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH"S
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.