the Edinburgh Review, and some Essays (excellent) The Christian contemplated; in a Course of Lectures must always command a wide and attentive shall observe inviolably all the unities and challenge severity as a finished piece, but yet, no more than a French drama that has fulfilled the same nice conditions, excite no sentiment and produce no effect "Give us "-exclaims Mr. Jay, and we quote the language to his honour-" rather the Shakspeare, who, with blemishes which a less shrewd observer than Voltaire may detect, actually succeeds, arrests, inspires, enchants!" In subsequent remarks of the same excellent spirit, Mr. Jay guards himself against recommending anything but an easy, natural, simple style of language in support of the advantages of which he shows his educated familiarity not alone with Milton, Addison, and Lord Kaimes, but with Rousseau and with Hume.-Ibid. This is a reprint of one of the many admirable serial papers in Blackwood's Magazine, which, hav ing undergone revision, are now in the course of reproduction in this more enduring form. Tom Cringle,s Log and other works have been similarly published, and proved very welcome additions to the library of fiction. In the instance before us we have to observe, besides a complete revision, some additions to the original text. Mr. William Truck, seeing that he began his lucubrations three-andtwenty years ago, was, we suppose, about the first who plunged into nautical matters in the great wake of Smollett, and seems to have found himself exposed to a deal of squeamishness in consequence. The magazine indeed-assailed by "officers and commanders" for Mr. William's "trivial distinctions between the language of Jack and the gentleman "was forced to run him aground prematurely. We have since got rid of these needless delicacies, thanks to Captain Marryat's brilliant success, which has done still greater good in directing attention to professional abuse" of a different and more serious kind. As a series of sketches, the forerunners of the naval novels, the Man-o'- War's Man is interest SELECT LIST OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. GREAT BRITAIN. Theophania; or, Divine manifestation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. By Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, Edited from a manuscript recently discovered, by Prof. Samuel Lee, M. D. The Plea of Insanity in Criminal Cases. By Forbes Winslow, Esq. M. R. C. S. 12mo. Reeds shaken with the Wind. By the Rev. K. S. Hawker, M. A. Vicar of Morwenstow, Cornwall. Enter into thy Closet ; or, Secret Prayer. The Duties of the Married State. By Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy, including the Papal States, Rome and the cities of Etruria. Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, illustrative of her Personal History, now first published from the Originals. Edited by Agnes Strickland. Vol. 3, 8vo. GERMANY. Bretschneider. Vol. x. Philippi Melanthonis Commentar über d. Psalmen, von Dr. E. Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der Geschichte der neuern Philosophie. 2r Bd. 2te Abtheil. Leibnitz und die Entwicklung des Idealismus vor Kant. Leipzig. Verhandlungen der vierten Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner in Bonn 1841. Bonn. De Romæ veteris muris, atque portis; von G A. Becker. Lips. Mythologische Forschungen und Sammlungen, von Wolfgang Menzel. Stuttgart. FRANCE. Napoléon et l'Angleterre. Campagne de Pologne. Par le Vicomte de Marquessac. Paris. Poésies complètes de Robert Burns, traduites de l'Ecossais, par M. Leon de Wailly; avec une Introduction du même. Paris. Rimes Heroïques, par Auguste Barbier. Paris. Discours de M. Lamartine, prononcé à la Chambre de Députés, revue par luimême. Paris. ing, to say nothing of what candid seaman report of Monographie de la Presse Parisienne, THE ECLECTIC MUSEUM OF FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART. JUNE, 18 4 3. "THE DESOLATER DESOLATE "-BYRON. Engraved by Mr. Sartain, from Haydon's Picture. TO B. R. HAYDON, On seeing his picture of Napoleon Buonaparte on the Island of St. Helena, HAYDON! let worthier judges praise the skill Yet, e'en in yon sequestered spot, Than yet thy life has known; Conquest unbought by blood or harm, That needs not foreign aid nor arm, A triumph all thine own. Such waits thee when thou shalt control Those passions wild, that stubborn soul, That marred thy prosperous scene: Hear this from no unmoved heart, Which sighs, comparing what thou art With what thou might'st have been! SCOTT. Stern tide of human Time! that know'st not rest, Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his way, Bear'st ever downward on thy dusky breast WORDSWORTH. Successive generations to their doom; While thy capacious stream has equal room For the gay bark where pleasure's streamers sport, And for the prison-ship of guilt and gloom, The fisher-skiff, and barge that bears a court, Still wafting onward all to one dark silent port. Stern tide of Time! thro' what mysterious change Of hope and fear have our frail barks been driven! For ne'er, before, vicissitude so strange Was to one race of Adam's offspring given. And sure such varied change of sea and heaven, Such unexpected bursts of joy and wo, Such fearful strife, as that where we have striven, Succeeding ages ne'er again shall know, Until the awful term when thou shalt cease to flow. SCOTT. Isolation is, beyond question, a humbling thing: let those think serenely of themselves whom a world embraces, who lie pillowed and cushioned upon soft affections and tender regards, and the breath of admiring circles-greatness in isolation feels itself, after all, but a wreck and a cast-off from the social system, wanderer forlorn, worldless fragmentary being, like the wild animal of the desert,-gaunt solitary tenant of space and night.-British Critic. CHANGES OF SOCIAL LIFE IN GER- From the Edinburgh Review. last incident recorded in them is the arrival, at Danzig, of the news of the destruction of the Bastile. Her daughter, upon whom 1. Jugendleben und Wanderbilder. Von devolved the duty of publishing these MeJohanna Schopenhauer. (Recollections moirs, chose rather to give them in their of my Youth and Wanderings. By Jo- fragmentary form than to fill up the chasms hanna Schopenhauer.) 2 vols. Bruns- from her own knowledge of her mother's wick: 1839. history; and though such a work could. 2. Zeitbilder-Wien in der Letzten Halfte never fall into more competent hands, we des Achtzehuten Jahrhunderts. Von Caro-admire the good taste which influenced her line Pichler. (Sketches of Bygone decision. She has added nothing but the Times-Vienna in the Latter Half of the few words absolutely necessary to explain Eighteenth Century. By Caroline Pich- the circumstances under which the book ler.) Vienna: 1839. was given to the world. Madame Pichler's work consists of Re old times," and more apt to lament over the degeneracy of modern manners. THE authors of these works were, in miniscences. True to her vocation as a their day, among the most popular female novel-writer, she has strung her amusing novel-writers of Germany; and some of "Sketches" of the society of Vienna at their productions rank with the standard the end of the last century on a thread of novels of that country. The first of the story. This detracts from the air of truth two also published travels in France, Bel- which they would otherwise have, and, as gium, and England, and a little work of the story itself is of the feeblest texture, some merit on old German art entitled adds nothing to the interest. They lose "Van Eyk and his Contemporaries." This the character of descriptions by an eyelady's life was a varied and eventful one. witness, which is the greatest merit such a It was her lot to live through, and partly work can possess. Madame Pichler is into witness, some of the greatest events ferior to her northern contemporary in the of modern times. Her earliest recollection candor which ought to preside over all comwas the dismemberment of Poland, and the parisons of different ages or countries. She consequent ruin of her paternal city, Dan-is more prejudiced in favor of the "good zig. Then came the American war, which excited such intense and universal interest. Her first visit to Paris was during the mutterings of the storm which soon burst over France. She was present at Versailles the last time Louis XVI. and his unfortunate Queen were permitted to celebrate the Fête de St. Louis. She saw the last gleam of their setting sun. She lived for some years in Hamburg, and had thus an opportunity of comparing that city with its Hanseatic sister and rival, Danzig, her native place. After the death of her husband she went to reside at Weimar. She had not been there a fortnight when the battle of Jena fell like a thunderbolt upon Germany. She has left a circumstantial and lively account of the scenes of which she was an eye-witness at that terrible moment. At Weimar she lived in the closest intimacy with Goethe; and her house was the resort of the eminent persons who were attracted to that remarkable court. Unfortunately, the whole of this eventful history, from the year 1789, exists only in mere notes and fragments. At the age of seventy-two she sat down to put her "Recollections" into a regular form and order; but she had got little beyond the period of her early marriage, when her hand was stopped by a sudden but placid death. The These two works, with one or two others to which we shall occasionally refer, will enable us, we hope, to lay before our readers some agreeable details; and at the same time to furnish some glimpses of the life and condition of the middle classes in Germany at the end of the last century. The progress made by England in what the French call material civilization-in all that conduces to the splendor, comfort, and convenience of physical life-has been so much more rapid than that of the nations of the Continent, that fewer remains of the domestic life of the last century are to be found among us than among any other people. Less than half a century has totally changed the habits of the middle classes. In Germany, where the change is much more recent and partial, an Englishman is still continually reminded of the customs and the traditions of his childhood; especially if that childhood was passed in a provincial town. In the more remote parts, we find a state of civilization which we have regarded as passed forever. The observant and reflecting traveller meets, with a kind of delighted recognition, some custom, some saying, some implement, dress, or viand-perhaps some sentiment or opinion, for these, too, |