phon will certainly be pleased, and the Examiner may be forgiven too for a simile which, after all, only shows its loyalty to the old theory,— that the Major ran away from Hood, and attempted to fall back on Washington through Savannah. The Athenæum, however, goes far beyond its contemporaries, and, with true love for the ideal, paints the invasion in these colors: "Except the squadrons which charged at Worcester and Naseby, no army was ever set in the field like that of Sherman. Many of the rank and file were gentlemen, advocates, preachers, bankers, landlords; such men as London society, and be members of Pall Mall Clubs. cavalry rode their own mares; many of the infantry had own arms. They were persons of estate, accustomed to good houses and rich living. . . . . What were they going to do? One thing was clear, they were going to defy all military rules, and, at the risk of their lives, to enlarge the art of war." Is this a reference to the bummers? - poets, writers, would mix in Many of the bought their Since it has become customary to advise an author to change, condense, or in some way revise whatever he happens to write, in compliance with the fashion, but without desiring to see any alteration in the body of the Major's book, a suggestion may be of value to him with reference to his title-page in future editions. A trifling alteration would make it a truer index of the contents of the volume; and truth, the Major will admit on reflection, has even higher claims than modesty; a mere transposition would make it read, "The Story of the Great March, by Brevet Major George Ward Nichols. From the Diary of a Staff Officer, Aid-de-Camp to General Sherman, etc., etc." 12.-The Sunday Book of Poetry. Selected and arranged by C. F. ALEXANDER. Cambridge Sever and Francis. 1865. 16mo. pp. viii., 335. [Reprint.] THIS little volume fitly takes place in the "Golden Treasury" series. It is one of the best of recent collections of sacred poetry. It is so partly because many of the poems are neither hymns nor prayers; their religious bearing being felt rather than avowed. The general good judgment and the liberality of taste displayed in the selections make up for the absence of critical fastidiousness on the part of the compiler, which is occasionally shown in the admission of pieces destitute alike of poetical merit and of simplicity of feeling. That the compiler belongs to the Church of England is made evident by the character of some of the selections; but the book has no such sectarianism about it as to prevent its being used with pleasure by those who are not offended by the opinions of Herbert and Cowper. The selections have a wide range, and run back from the poets of our own day to those of the seventeenth, and even the sixteenth century. A fault we are ready to find with the book here and there-the more readily because the editor has shown so much carefulness of choice that she might herself feel the force of the criticism — is, that many of the poems in it addressed to, or written about, children, like most of those of the same class to be found elsewhere, are marked by a fastidious sentiment which makes it at once impossible and undesirable that they should interest children "from eight to fourteen," for whom the volume is particularly intended. Verses of the stamp of those of Keble on "Saying the Creed" (p. 137), or of the well-known lines by Mr. Willis (p. 273) descriptive of the devout infantine astronomer, can little benefit any child; while Mrs. Judson's maternal gush (p. 152) about her loving birdling" with "silken-fringed rose-leaves on her starry eyes," is somewhat tiresome even to one fond of children. 66 It would seem, too, as if distance must wonderfully magnify poetical beauties, if in England Mrs. Sigourney's verses on "The Lost Day" (p. 129) are thought well of, with their first line, "Lost! lost! lost!" which sounds like a converted echo, an echo "under conviction of the cry of the goblin dwarf in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Putting by the side of these feeble eight verses Mr. Emerson's noble eight lines called "Days," the contrast between "the grand style" and a common style may be fully felt. But to make up for these and other poor American effusions, there are copious and sufficiently well-chosen extracts from Mr. Longfellow, who has expressed so many of the purest and most delicate emotions with the highest truth and simplicity. Indeed, the volume contains many both familiar and unfamiliar poems of great beauty. 13.-The Ballad Book: a Selection of the choicest British Ballads. Edited by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM, Author of "Day and Night Songs," etc. Cambridge: Sever and Francis. 16mo. pp. xlvii., 397. [Reprint.] MR. ALLINGHAM has arranged in this pretty and pleasant volume seventy-six of the old ballads chosen for those characteristics which secure them general popularity. It is a selection not meant for the scholar, certainly not intended for the special student of ballad literature, but to bring anew before the public what charmed our fathers and our more distant ancestors. And it is, as such a collection always must be, a delightful book, from the character of the poems themselves, and from the associations and suggestions connected with them. The old English and Scotch ballads have the perennial charm of simplicity of feeling and directness of expression. Aladdin's old lamp is worth more than the new ones, and our poets (of Mr. Allingham's standing) do well when they exert themselves to rub up the old, rather than to make new lamps. But let not too much polishing be done; above all, let no recasting be attempted. It is a literary crime to make an old thing new; yet this has been Mr. Allingham's temptation. We owe him thanks that he has yielded to it so little. He has, in fact, done no more than most of his brother editors have done before him; but are we to have these ballads, many of them so famous, and now so familiar, rearranged for each successive generation? Mr. Allingham has collected of the different ballads the various versions now before the public, attempting to select the stanzas of greatest merit from each copy, and to set forth the story in a complete and consistent form. "A better ballad is the result," is his own judgment upon his work, in one instance avowedly, and inferentially in all. His alterations, generally verbal, are not very great, nor, if alterations are to be allowed at all, very blameworthy. But we can find no suggestion nor see the reason for such changes as, for example, this, of a verse in the Dowie Dens of Yarrow, or, as Mr. Allingham has it, "The Banks of Yarrow." The previously accepted version reads: “O fare ye weel, my ladye gaye, O fare ye weel, my Sarah! For I maun gae, though I ne'er return Mr. Allingham's reads: “O fare ye weel, my lady dear! And put aside your sorrow; For if I gae, I'll sune return Frae the bonny banks o' Yarrow." The effective and beautiful ballad of "The Cruel Brother" is singularly twisted and turned; and we question the taste which selects that version of Sir Patrick Spens from which are omitted the two picturesque and vigorous verses: — Religious Experience. By the Rev. Joseph H. Jones, D. D. Second Edition. Philadelphia: James S. Claxton. 1865. 12mo. pp. 324. 9. The Bible Hand-Book: an Introduction to the Study of the Sacred Scriptures. By Joseph Angus, D.D. Revised Edition, with Illustrations. Philadelphia: James S. Claxton. 1865. 12mo. pp. 727. 10. The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL. D. New York: P. O'Shea. 1866. 8vo. pp. xvi., 439. By Arthur Latham Perry. New 8vo. pp. xix., 449. 11. Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866. 8vo. pp. 296. 12. Elements of Political Economy. York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1866. 13. Richard Cobden. A Biography. Harper and Brothers. 1865. 16mo. pp. 304. By John McGilchrist. New York: 14. Reminiscences, Historical and Biographical, of Sixty-four Years in the Ministry. By Rev. Henry Boehm. Edited by Rev. Joseph B. Wakeley. New York: Carlton and Porter. 1865. 16mo. pp. 493. 15. The Poetry of the Orient. Roberts Brothers. 1865. 16mo. By William Rounseville Alger. Boston: pp. xii., 337. 16. War Lyrics, and other Poems. By Henry Howard Brownell. Boston Ticknor and Fields. 1866. 16mo. pp. 243. : 17. Poems by Robert Buchanan. 16mo. pp. 311. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1866. 18. Outcroppings; being Selections from California Verse. San Francisco: A. Roman & Co. 1866. Square 16mo. pp. 144. 19. The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 1865. 16mo. [Blue and Gold.] pp. 240. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 20. Glimpses of History. By George M. Towle. Spencer. 1866. 12mo. pp. 262. Boston: William V. 21. A Summer in Skye. By Alexander Smith. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1865. 16mo. pp. 423. 22. Little Foxes. By Christopher Crowfield. Fields. 1866. 16mo. pp. 287. Boston: Ticknor and 23. Georgy Sandon; or, A Lost Love. By Ashford Owen. Boston: Loring. 1865. 16mo. pp. 215. 24. Handbook of the Steam-Engine. By John Bourne, C. E. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1865. 12mo. pp. xii., 474. 25. Seaside Studies in Natural History. By Elizabeth C. Agassiz and Alexander Agassiz. Marine Animals of Massachusetts Bay. Radiates. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1865. 8vo. pp. vi., 155. 26. The Freedmen's Book. By L. Maria Child. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1865. 16mo. pp. vi., 277. NORTH AMERICAN AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCXI. APRIL, 1866. ART. I.-Euvres Complètes d'ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE. Tomes VII. and VIII. Paris. 1865. MANY among us are old enough to remember the visit of Messrs. de Tocqueville and de Beaumont, and the sensation produced throughout Christendom by the appearance of La Democratie en Amérique, from the pen of the former of these gentlemen. Democracy in America! Who in the year 1832 could have foretold the meaning these words would have in this year 1866? If it were given to any human being then living to foresee the condition and prospects of our country at this moment, that person was certainly not M. de Tocqueville. Much as he studied and well as he understood our institutions, -and he studied them deeply and with great fairness, he signally failed, as late events have shown, to discover the real secret of their nature, or to fathom the character of our people. His book has been so much read, and has had, as we think, so considerable an influence in Europe, and particularly in England, as to have led to great misunderstanding in relation to the late Rebellion. Under this persuasion, we believe that a little time may be well spent in pointing out, and accounting for, a very grave mistake of the writer in a most important particular. It will be recollected that Messrs. de Tocqueville and de Beaumont were sent by King Louis Philippe expressly to study the institutions of the United States; and certainly the task - NO. 211. VOL. CII. 21 |