The volumes are written in general with a freedom, a frankness, and an utter absence of pretension, which will secure them the respect and good-will of all parties. The author professes to have compiled his narrative merely from "brief notes and recollections," admitting that he has probably fallen into errors regarding facts and impressions errors he has been prevented from seeking out and correcting by the urgency of other occupations since his return. We have, therefore, thought it quite as well not to trouble our readers, in this cursory review, with references to parallel travels, now familiar, and whose merits and demerits are sufficiently well understood. We take leave of Mr. Stephens with sentiments of hearty respect. We hope it is not the last time we shall hear from him. He is a traveller with whom we shall like to take other journeys. Equally free from the exaggerated sentimentality of Chateaubriand, or the sublimated, the too French enthusiasm of Lamartine on the one hand, and on the other from the degrading spirit of utilitarianism, which sees in mountains and waterfalls only quarries and manufacturing sites, Mr. Stephens writes like a man of good sense and sound feeling. A SYNOPSIS OF NATURAL HISTORY; EMBRACING THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ANIMALS, WITH HUMAN AND GENERAL ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY, Botany, VegETABLE PHYSIOLOGY, AND GEOLOGY. TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST FRENCH EDITION OF C. LEMMONnier, PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF CHARLEMAGNE; WITH ADDITIONS FROM THE WORKS OF CUVIER, DUMaril, Lacepede, etc. ARRANGED AS A TEXT BOOK FOR SCHOOLS. BY THOMAS WYATT, A.M., AUTHOR OF ELements OF BOTANY, A MANUAL OF CONCHOLOGY, ETC. THOMAS WARDLE, PHILADELPHIA. [Text: Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1839.1] MR. WYATT is favourably known to the public as the author of an exceedingly well arranged, accurate, and beautifully illustrated Conchology," and has been mainly instrumental, we believe, in drawing that public attention to the science in this country which is now so obviously manifested. We hope that his success with the present publication will be commensurate with the wider range which he has taken. It cannot be denied that a synopsis such as he now puts forth has been long a desideratum. While there has been no deficiency of school books in any one of the sciences embraced within a proper course of Natural History, it must still have occurred to many as singular, that in a study whose very existence may be said to depend upon method, there should have been, hitherto, no attempt at collecting the parts into an easily discernible whole. 1 Reprinted because of the light it throws on Poe's "Conchology"; see "Memorials of Edgar Allan Poe." — ED. As the work of Mr. Wyatt professes to be simply a translation of the well-known "Tableaux" of M. Lemmonnier, we need say little more in the way of recommendation than that all the useful spirit of the original has been preserved - and this we say from personal knowledge, and the closest inspection and collation. In changing the tabular form of the French publication to one better suiting the purposes of our American schools, some little latitude was of course admissible and unavoidable. The book is a large octavo, beautifully printed on fine paper, and illustrated by fortynine well-executed plates. Copies, coloured with accuracy, under the superintendence of Mr. James Ackermann, are for sale at our principal bookstores. The whole work does credit to all parties, and should be patronized, not less for its intrinsic value than as a matter of just policy, by all Philadelphians who have the publishing interest of the city at heart. TORTESA, THE USURER: A PLAY. BY N. P. WILLIS. SAMUEL COLMan, New York. [Text: Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, August, 1839.] "TORTESA " is, we think, by far the best play from the pen of an American author. Its merits lie among the higher and most difficult dramatic qualities, and, although few in number, are extensive in their influence upon the whole work; pervading it, and fully redeeming it from the sin of its multitudinous minor defects. These merits are naturalness, truthfulness, and appropriateness, upon all occasions, of sentiment and language; a manly vigour and breadth in the conception of character; and a fine ideal elevation or exaggeration throughout a matter forgotten or avoided by those who, with true Flemish perception of truth, wish to copy her peculiarities in disarray. Mr. Willis has not lost sight of the important consideration that the perfection of dramatic, as well as of plastic skill, is found not in the imitation of Nature, but in the artistical adjustment and amplification of her features. We recognize a refined taste upon every page of "Tortesa." Its points, too, are abundant, and scatter vivacity and brilliancy over the play. That the excellences of which we speak are great, cannot be more forcibly shown than by allusion to some of the innumerable faults which are still insufficient to render these excellences obscure. A simple The plot is miserably inconsequential. prose digest, or compendium, of the narrative, would be scarcely intelligible, so much is the whole overloaded with incidents that have no bearing upon the ultimate result. Three-fourths of the play might be blotted out without injury to the plot properly so called. This would be less objectionable, if it were not that the attention of the reader is repeatedly challenged to these irrelevant incidents, as if they were actually pertinent to the main business of the drama. We are not allowed to pass them by, in perusal, as obviously episodical. We fatigue ourselves with an attempt to identify them with the leading interests, and grow at length wearied in the fruitless effort. When we perceive Zippa plotting and counterplotting upon every page, it is impossible not to think that she is plotting to some purpose. She does nothing, however, in the end; and for any effect upon the play, might as well never have existed. An instance of this is seen in the last act, where the whole of the second scene is in troduced for the purpose of informing her, by means of Tomaso, of the danger of Angelo. She rushes from the stage exclaiming that she has it in her power to save his life; and of course, in the trial scene, we naturally expect some important interference on her The judgment is rendered, however, without part. her interposition. The conclusion of the play, too, is much in the same way. The audience cannot be brought to believe that all the scheming and counterscheming here introduced is in the slightest degree. essential, since the entire difficulty might have been settled by a single word from the Duke, who is favourably disposed to all parties. "The The old manœuvre of the sleeping draught calls "Romeo and Juliet" somewhat too forcibly to mind. The idea, too, of the deception practised upon Tortesa by means of the portrait is borrowed apparently from the Winter's Tale," and is, moreover, absurd. No person could have been thus deceived, and the spectator cannot imagine any such deception. back wall of the scene,' we are told in the stage directions, "is so arranged as to form a natural ground for the picture;" but this is obviously impossible, except in regard to a single point of view the illusion would be dispelled by the slightest movement on the part of Tortesa. There are a great many other improbabilities which entirely destroy the vraisemblance — but we have not space to point them out. The characters, generally, are deficient in prominence in individuality. Zippa is a positive failure. we can make nothing of her. Tortesa is outrageously inconsistent. It is impossible to reconcile the utter blackguard of the first. scenes with the lofty self-sacrificing spirit who figures The conception, too, of the revulsion of in the last. - |