LITERARY

LIFE OF JEAN PAUL FREDERIC RICHTER, Compiled from various sources, together with his Autobiography. Translated from the German. Boston: Little & Brown. 1842.

Though the larger works of Richter have not been translated in this country, and are, perhaps, not very generally read here, yet his name is as familiar to us as that of almost any writer of his nation. As his writings abound in aphorisms and striking comparisons, we often meet with detached passages from them, so that it would seem as if "thoughts from Jean Paul," or "reflections from Richter," were among the most common resources of those who have columns to fill out, or morals to illustrate.

To those who know Richter only in this way, as well as those who, from a more thorough acquaintance with his works, have learned to value him more, this new biography will be a most acceptable present. It contains his autobiography, which, however, reaches only to his thirteenth year, and a connected narrative of his life, drawn from all the best sources, with copious extracts from his correspondence, and a critical examination of most of his more important works. His life, although marked by none of those events which are called great in the history of the world, is still deeply interesting. He was born in very straitened circumstances, and his situation became still more trying when, by the death of his father, his family were deprived of his small salary, which was their only means of support. We follow him with deep interest while, with a noble courage, and a cheerful heart, he struggles on until he becomes known to the world, and the product of his own writings, helped out at last by a small pension from government, puts him at ease.

Richter was a great admirer of the fair sex, and was in a most remarkable degree the favorite of women. One of his female correspondents tells him "not to smile," and that "the tone that his mind gave without words was sweeter than the sounds of the harmonicon." The impression he made on the minds of women, placed him more than once in circumstances of some embarrassment; but while he treated with the greatest kindness and respect, the fair unfortunates whose love he could not return, he conducted himself uniformly in the purest and most unblameable manner, and contrived at last to make a very sensible and judicious choice of a wife, which is more than men of great genius always do. His married life was a perfectly quiet and happy one.

NOTICES.

There are copious extracts from his correspondence, which are extremely pleasant, and allow us to learn his story from his own words. The style of the narrative is good, and the translations are faithful and graceful. The Appendix contains some notices of the domestic life of Richter's friends, Wieland and Herder, and translations of some of his writings. The book is beautifully printed, and report names as the author a lady of high literary acquirements, to whom the public are certainly greatly indebted for this very interesting biography.

SON.

JOHNSONIANA; OR, SUPPLEMENT TO BOSWELL: BEING ANECDOTES AND SAYINGS OF DR. JOHNCollected from various sources, edited by J. Wilson Croker. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart's Reprint. 1842.

The world will allow that the subject of the great English moralist is now pretty thoroughly done up. Boswell did his work, it was thought, not slightingly, but this supplement must be allowed to sweep clean after him. It collects anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, from the private journals, most of which, however, have long since been made public, at least the parts relating to the great Lexicographer, of a vast number of persons. Mrs. Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Miss Reynolds, her brother Sir Joshua, Hannah More, Madam D'Arblay, &c., &c., have been drawn upon to make up this volume. The gems are numbered, and amount to more than seven hundred. To these anecdotes and sayings are added critical remarks by Dr. Drake, a miscellaneous collection of anecdotes, opinions, and remarks upon Johnson from a great variety of writers, among others, Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and Sir James Mackintosh. Then follow some jeux d'esprit on Johnson's biographers, and the whole concludes with a brief memoir of Boswell by Edmond Malone, extracts from Boswell's letters, and his tour in Corsica.

It is said of a celebrated clergyman of the last century, who prided himself somewhat upon the admirable manner in which he read the lesson of the day in church, that having finished it, he closed the bible with an air that seemed plainly to say, "I defy any body to read that chapter better." Mr. Croker must have had something of this feeling, one would think, and having corrected his last proof, must have ejaculated his defiance to any body to hunt up a saying of Johnson, good or bad, which had not now been published to the world.

The book, however, is an amusing one, and though there are not many anecdotes which most people who have lived thirty or forty years have not had an opportunity to laugh or weep at before, yet some of them are new, and some of them had been forgotten, and one never gets tired of the poor old Doctor, let his best friends do what they will. We quote one or two of the sayings :

656. Miss Johnson, one of Sir Joshua's nieces, (afterwards Mrs. Deane,) was dining one day at her uncle's, with Dr. Johnson and a large party; the conversation happening to turn on music, Johnson spoke very contemptuously of that art, and added, " that no man of talent, or whose mind was capable of better things, ever would or could devote his time and attention to so idle and frivolous a pursuit." The young lady, who was very fond of music, whispered her neighbor, "I wonder what Dr. Johnson thinks of King David?" Johnson overheard her, and with great good humor and complacency said, "Madam, I thank you; I stand rebuked before you, and promise that, on one subject, at least, you shall never hear me talk nonsense again."

On another occasion he was not quite so goodhumored.

655. The late Mr. Crauford, of Hyde Park corner, being engaged to dinner where Dr. Johnson was to be, resolved to pay his court to him; and having heard that he preferred Donne's Satires to Pope's version of them, said, "Do you know, Dr. Johnson, that I like Dr. Donne's original satires better than Pope's?" Johnson said, "Well, sir, I can't help that."

ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH or Sketches of Life from the By-ways of History. By the Benedictine Brethren of Glendalough. Edited by Wm. C. Taylor, LL. D., &c.

Two vols. Lea & Blanchard's Reprint, 1842. Boston: W. D. Ticknor.

This book is not what one would take it for, who found it lying upon his table, lettered, "Biography of the age of Queen Elizabeth," and who opened it, calling to mind the rich vein for biographical writing that age affords. The title page, however, with its leading word "Romantic," and its machinery of apocryphal " Benedictine brethren," begins to prepare us for something else than serious biography, and the reading any three pages in the book, throws at once a damper over our spirits, by showing us that it is written by a punster.

Looked at as another volume like those again and again published under the title of "Romance of History," this work, being measured by a lower standard, may claim a higher position. The author (for the "Benedictine brethren " are explained away in the first pages of the preface, and the whole book is, in fact, from one pen,) lays open his plan, divulges the characteristic levity of his principles of judgment, and gives a sample of his historical style, in the following short passage from the introduction;

"We have endeavored to extend to the literature of fact some of the gaieties which are more usually associated with the literature of fiction, without abandoning the "gravities" which necessarily belong to diligent research, and minute accuracy of statement. Let it not be said that we thus derogate from the dignity of History; when the ancient classical authors selected a goddess to preside over this department of knowledge, everybody knows that in their choice there was always a-muse-meant. Still less should we be blamed for sometimes interrupting the frown of indignation or the tear of sympathy with allusions calculated to raise a smile; the springs of mirth and of grief are placed close to each other in the geography of the human mind; men frequently laugh until they cry, and sometimes, reversing the process, weep until they smile at their over excess of sorrow," &c.

Notwithstanding this flippant style, which pervades the book, we doubt not it may be found interesting with those who wish to be amused while they study. It is more a novel than a history, in manner and intent; but containing notices, probably not incorrect, of Margaret of Valois; Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; La Mothe Fenelon ; Calvin; Loyola, and the order he founded; and many others of the same stamp and time; it can hardly fail to be interesting.

CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, collected by himself. 3 vols. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1841 (?)

We are glad to see that among the reprints of the "Miscellanies" of modern writers, of late so fashionable, those of Walter Scott have not been passed over by our American publishers. We have now all his works collected; and this last addition will not be, to most readers, the least interesting. We have not space even to enumerate the titles of the leading articles, but among the most curious will be found Scott's reviews of his own novels, written while he was still maintaining his incognito with regard to them.

The collection forms three octavo volumes, printed in a style more than usually creditable to the Philadelphia press, on handsome paper.

HUMAN LIFE, OR PRACTICAL ETHICS. Translated from the German of De Wette, by Samuel Osgood. In two volumes, (Vols. XII. and XIII. Ripley's Library of Foreign Literature.) Boston: James Munroe & Co.

These volumes contain a translation of a series of lectures on Practical Ethics, delivered at Basle almost twenty years since, by De Wette, prefaced by a course on general or theoretical ethics, abridged and thrown into the form of an introduction by the translator. The work of translation has been well, and even elegantly performed; and the importance of the subject, with the highly philosophical tone with which it is treated, cannot fail to

make this book interesting, although neither of these causes will make it popular.

De Wette, although a man of original mind, is, we are told by the preface, in morals avowedly the disciple of Fries. The latter, following Jacobi and Schleiermacher, both inclined to grant more influence to the heart in morals than did Kant, stands at the head of the sentimental moralists in modern Germany. And thus De Wette, giving each a weight to reason, to faith, and to feeling, has produced a highly cultivated philosophy, and one that looks to Christianity as its basis of illustration. Of the author as a philosopher of human life, the translator thus speaks:

"All that he writes is pervaded by a strong and earnest humanity, which shows itself alike in vindication of the essential rights of man, and in sympathy with the various sentiments of the human heart. He strives to find what is good in every doctrine, institution, and character, and tenderly avoids disparaging any usage which piety has consecrated or affection endeared. His taste and his imagination throw open to his mind the fair domain of poetry and art, and make him a fit advocate and interpreter of the graces that should adorn life. His hearty love for freedom appears in the earnestness with which he denounces all manner of oppression, and advocates a political liberty sustained by justice. His faith is so broad and catholic as to comprehend every human interest, and to hallow every duty. Not confined to a few dogmas and rights not writing common and unclean upon any gift of God, - his religion is as expansive as human life, and owns a moral meaning in all the blessings of Providence."

SONGS AND BALLADS. From the German. By C. T. Brooks. (Vol. XIV. Ripley's Foreign Library.)

This volume, published in the same series as those last above noticed, contains a series of translations of German songs, ballads, odes, elegies, and other short poems, which will be a very valuable gift to those who cannot enjoy these works in the original language. We thus particularize, from the full belief that the songs of a nation are the last portion of its literature to be well translated. These versions are correct and in many instances elegant. The principal part of them are by Mr. Brooks himself, but several are distinguished by the initials of N. L. Frothingham, H. W. Longfellow, J. S. Dwight, Sarah H. Whitman, and C. P. Cranch.

BOOK OF THE NAVY ; &c., &c. By John Frost. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This is a handsomely illustrated book, purporting to contain a general history of the American marine, with particular accounts of all the most celebrated battles in which it has been engaged since the declaration of independence. The wood cuts, from drawings by Mr. Croome, are full of spirit, and are appropriate and highly ornamental to the

DUNLOP'S HISTORY OF FICTION. Two vols. From the second London edition. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart.

We have room but to express our pleasure that the American publishers, in selecting a work to reprint, should have chosen one so useful and full of value as that of Dunlop. It comprises a critical account of the most celebrated prose works of fiction, "from the earliest Greek romances to the novels of the present day;" or rather to the beginning of this century, as the edition from which this is taken was published in 1816, and closes with notices of Mrs. Radcliffe, and her imitators.

MEMOIRS OF THE RHODE ISLAND BAR. By Wilkins Updike, Esq. Boston: Thomas H. Webb & Co.

This tribute to the biographical lore of our country contains the memoirs of fifteen distinguished lawyers of Rhode Island, all of the last century. It is modest and unpretending, and seems to aim only at giving such facts as can now be collected with regard to the persons of whom it treats, which is generally done in the very form in which the information was transmitted to the editor.

THE MAN OF FORTUNE, &c. By Mrs. Gore. Two vols. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard.

This is a reprint of a series of tales by Mrs. Gore, of which "The Man of Fortune," the longest, occupies nearly the first volume. Mrs. Gore is among the most popular magazine writers of

her class.

LIBRARY OF SELECT NOVELS.

The Harpers have published Bulwer's "Devereux," and "the Disowned," in a pamphlet form, as Nos. 2 and 3 of their Library of Novels, of which we took occasion to speak last month.