NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

I. Sandwich Island Notes. By a Häolé (Foreigner.) Harpers. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 493.

New York: 1854. pp.

We have read this book with very great interest, anxious to understand the actual facts in regard to the results of the Missions in the Islands. We cannot say that we think the author unprejudiced, though he is not to be classed with those who make a point of disparaging and discrediting the missionaries. It is, we have no doubt, extremely difficult to give an account of the results of missionary labor in a heathen country, without being misunderstood, and ages of degradation must take a long time to work out of the blood of a nation. We are entirely willing to know the truth in this case from every source, but we cannot doubt that the reader will receive from this book an impression as much below the truth, as he may have received one above it from mistaking our missionary brethren. The author bears warm testimony to the excellence of some of the missionaries; of others, as for example, Rev. Richard Armstrong, we have no doubt he has a wrong impression. The volume is quite pleasant, cheerful and readable, the scenes painted with a good deal of vividness. By far the worst parts of it are the attempts at fine writing, in which there is occasional unwarrantable indulgence.

II. BOOKS INTERESTING TO YOUNG LADIES.

1. Magdalen Hepburn. A Story of the Scottish Reformation. By the author of "Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland," "Adam Graeme," &c. Three volumes in one. New York: Riker, Thorne & Co, 1853. pp. 400.

We do not feel very free in commending anything fictitious, for, although the right plan is selection and not absolute prohibition, yet this rule should be modified by another-no fictions but the best, and not very many of them--fancy being a child that needs a great deal of watching. But we believe we must admit Magdalen Hepburn. Pure in taste, warm in feeling, high in patriotic ardor, sincere in energetic piety, and Presbyterian in every fibre, how could we reject it? John Knox is a prominent character, well drawn, and with a loving feeling not often shown to the great Reformer, and for this alone our hearts would warm to the fair authoress. The heroine is a fine, high-souled lady; but the true heroine, the one who is fore-shortened in the manner of one of Scott's living likenesses, is Jean Bowman. She is, so far as we know, unique in books. It will take a good while to bring the world right as to the glorious character of our Presbyterian ancestors, but literature is now tending in the right

direction, and such books as Magdalen Hepburn change healthfully the associations of young people from the toryism and aristocracy of Sir Walter, to liberty and truth. After the reaction in favor of Cromwell we may hope everything.

2. Lady Huntington and her Friends. By Helen C. Knight. American Tract Society.

We wish to hold this book up to our young-lady friends, and beg them to read it. The authoress has grouped, artistically, around the venerable and noble Lady Huntington, Doddridge, Whitefield, Wesley, Romaine, Berridge, Venn, Rowland Hill, and her female friends, some of them nobles of the English realm, who devoted themselves to the cause of religion, and lived in each other's society with much of primitive piety and loveliness. We are perfectly satisfied that every one who reads this book on our recommendation, will thank us for it. The authoress has made much of her materials. We have glimpses of Lord Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Garrick, and others, who were attracted by the admirable character of Lady Huntington, the genius of the ministers who surrounded her, and the power of the religious movement. It is a most attractive and deeply interesting portion of Church history.

3. Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected with the regal Succession of Great Britain. By Agnes Strickland. Vol. IV. New York: Harpers. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1854. pp. 347.

This volume does not finish the history of Mary Stuart. Darnley is still living at the end of it. Miss Strickland puts in every plea possible for poor Mary, which we feel to be natural, even if we are compelled to pass a severer judgment. These Lives are quite indispensable in every household. They are admirable for reading aloud, around the centre-table.

III. A popular account of the ancient Egyptians. Revised and abridged from his larger Work, by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, D. C. L., F. R. S., &c. Two volumes. Illustrated with Five Hundred wood cuts. New York: Harpers. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1854. pp. 419, 436.

This work does not go into the disputed questions. Menes is stated to have ascended the throne "probably between 2000 and 3000" B. C., and the Egyptians were "undoubtedly from Asia." It is what it professes to be, a full and popular account of everything connected with the manners customs, opinions and character of the Egyptians, with plates taken from the monuments. It is very curious, and to the inquisitive must be vastly interesting. Here are the sports, furniture, mode of living, women, religious ceremonies, &c., &c., figured to mind and senses; Egypt unroofed to the moderns. The volumes are of convenient size and fairly printed.

IV. Periscopics; or current Subjects extemporaneously treated. By William Elder. New York: J. C. Derby. 1854. pp. 408.

We are constantly reminded of that notable passage in the life of Luther, where he was overheard praying that the Almighty would destroy the world because it was too bad to mend; and of the practical modification of the same, in which Andrew Fairservice says that "there are many things in the world o'er bad for blessing and o'er good for banning, like Rob Roy."

What shall we Presbyterians do with Dr. Elder? It will not do to roast him at a slow fire, and if our principles and the times allowed that, there is at least one-third of his thoughts and feelings that would make any body but a Popish priest pause before he lighted the faggots.

Here is a man who goes against hanging parricides; who upholds the most mawkish notions about peace, striking down the right arm that is uplifted for the defence of altar and hearth; who reduces the Bible to a parcel of beautiful and philosophic myths, Moses being a kind of Æschylus, John a kind of Plato, and David and Solomon put together a kind of Shakspeare; who, joking all the while, helps all sorts of grim and visionary reformers in "world-mending;" and who stands aloof from the established ways of bettering the world, religious, political or otherwise, and amuses himself by publishing and lecturing a great variety of thoughts and notions, in which one's vexation at the trash is arrested every third sentence by admiration of its cross-fires of beauty and truth.

Yet, marvellous to say, the Doctor is, first, an American, the most practical of nations, next, a Pennsylvanian, the most substantial of all possible living creatures, and what kind of impulse, therefore, keeps up all this flightiness, is more mysterious to us than many of the things he puzzles

over.

We beg leave, in the name of Pennsylvania, to suggest to Dr. Elder to "go at" something practical and substantial; he is throwing away, every day, power and good sense enough to set up twenty men in any respectable line of life. If he will look at it, all his favorite reformers had a practical aim: Luther, like the Black Knight, thundered at the walls of Popery; Knox created Scotland; Cromwell crushed civil and religious tyranny; Paul spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth; Plato poured an ennobling and dignified philosophy into-to use one of the Doctor's phrasesthe "pivot-men" of the world; Washington and Hamilton and Henry swept the Western Hemisphere clear of despotism; Howard poured light and air into dungeons.

We are the more earnest in this matter because Dr. Elder evidently feels that he has "a mission," if he only knew what it was, and how to do it; and it is the business of us all-seeing reviewers, to explain these things to men.

And first let all men acknowledge the truth, that Dr. Elder is an extraordinary person. All ages but the present, and all nations but the Anglo-Saxon, reverenced extraordinary men, whether they considered them

priest, prophet, poet, medicine man, or fetisch. Genius sees farther than non-genius, sees more sharply and with far vaster and truer sympathies. This, all nations have recognized in various forms, the moderns and "practical" nations, as we said, least of all.

But genius must care for itself. It is not now as when a rhapsodist was crowned at the Olympic games. Sapphos now, who follow their impulses, are only actresses, a "low caste." Why should not genius, if it is a higher form of human development, take the requisite pains to put itself in a right point of light? Talent can do that for itself; even mediocrity can do it. When one is going to build a cottage, he tells his architect to put it in the best position on the farm; he does not demand that every traveller along the road should go out of the way to see his cottage; much more if one is building a magnificent church that is to last for ages. There are two things here: form and substance. Dr. Elder is wrong in both. There is hardly any thing of him yet, but great undeveloped

power.

For substance, then, he must do some one thing. He has talent enough for any of the paths he has tried, if he will only find out what is his vocation, and pursue it.

Let us assume that it is the press, because such men, feeling that they ought to speak to mankind, are restless if they cannot do it; and then the question would be as to the form of speech.

There can be no difficulty here. Let Dr. Elder settle down upon the safe and true principles of his early youth, those which Paul and Luther and Wesley preached, and building upon these all other truths, and impressing them with as much philosophy and genius and humor as he pleases, present them to the world, not in the fragmentary shape of most of this book, nor in the dreamy style of the "Myth, Enchanted Beauty," but in those of "General Ogle" and "Elizabeth Barton."

There are two ways, therefore, in which Dr. Elder can write successfully. One is the delineation of character, the other is what is called fiction. He needs the substratum of fact, he needs to be near the living, acting world. Then he has an untrodden field. He says in the preface, "The primitive piety and politics of my native mountains are, to my thoughts, the very blood and breath of their life. I wish they had a portraiture answering to their worth. I suppose somebody will be born in time for this use, but till his advent, those who have the sense that feels this want must wait and wish."

The public works of Pennsylvania have done something to throw open its magnificent scenery to the world, yet it is but little known. Still less is understood of its interior life. No people are so little demonstrative. They live and die like the trees of their beautiful forests.

Yet a remarkable life is there; original, peculiar, persistent, almost undescribed, less known to literature and general knowledge, we are sure, than any other remarkable and valuable form of life in America, perhaps in the world. Grace Greenwood has just touched this State, but she is

not "native to the manner born." Gertrude of Wyoming describes southern scenery, and manners such as never existed at all, with Pennsylvanian names. Elizabeth Barton is a story purely Pennsylvanian, and wonderfully told. We would give some extracts if we could possibly

make room.

The "General Ogle," we do not hesitate to say, is equal to any character-sketch ever written in America. Idealized it no doubt is, but it is such idealizing as is wrought by sunset and moonlight; the actual is there, every line, but glorified. We do not, of course, mean to be responsible for the sentiments of this sketch; we differ from the author in some material points, but if such writing had come to us across the Atlantic, it would be familiar to all readers of fine literature.

Dr. E. should learn from the critics where his power lies. The public want from him reliable opinions, sketches of character, and truth in fiction, of Pennsylvania life.

V. Sequel to the Neighbour's Children. From the German. By Mrs. Sarah A. Myers. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1854. pp. 333.

Several lessons are inculcated in this tale: the effects of good and bad training of children; that there are excellent people among the rich as well as the poor; the far-reaching effect of one act of disobedience. We have applied to a young person who is reading this prettily printed book, and are informed that it is quite interesting; and we regard her opinion in the premises as of more value than our own. As we can assure our friends that the story is of pure moral tendency, and young America finds it interesting, we certainly need add nothing more.

New

VI. A Complete Concordance of the Holy Scriptures, &c. By Alexander Cruden, M. A. From the Tenth London Edition. York: M. W. Dodd. 1854. pp. 856.

Our readers will be glad to know that Mr. Dodd has brought out a correct edition of Cruden, at a reasonable price. The only difficulty in knowing what to say of this Concordance is, that eulogy has been exhausted. It is absolutely indispensable to every minister, and most valuable to every Christian. No one thinks of buying any other large Concordance. Its correctness is wonderful; there seems hardly an error in it. We hardly know any work in this imperfect world done so well. It leaves almost nothing to be desired that a verbal Concordance can be expected to accomplish.

VII. Old Redstone; or Historical Sketches of Western Presbyterianism, its early Ministers, its perilous Times, and its first Records. By Joseph Smith, D. D. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1854. pp. 459.