Literature of the Season.

ONE of the chief characteristics of the London Season is the neverfailing appearance of some work, in several volumes, containing matter on which every newspaper lives from April to August;-reviewed by all, quoted by all. Great fund of anecdote, and plenty of jokes-especially those which have a historical bearing, and referring to eminent politicians or writers form the indispensable ingredient of works of this class. One season produces its Barham's Life of Hook, a succeeding year Pepys' Diary, another Sydney Smith's Life, and now we have not been able for months to take up a review or a newspaper without seeing some notice of Mr. Thomas Raikes. (1)-Selections from the Journal of the late Thomas Raikes, Esq., from 1831 to 1847, (Longman and Co.), have enabled old gentlemen of the reform era to brush up their recollections of that exciting time;-how Brougham thundered, and Eldon wept, and William R. yielded; while young Liberals chuckle over the victory and pluck of their fathers; and young Conservatives stand aghast at the shortsightedness and folly of theirs. Mr. Raikes, in his individual capacity, is a person of little interest; doubtless some future Macaulay, with a fondness for breaking a fly upon a wheel, may turn the garrulous old retailer of small-talk into ridicule, as the great Edinburgh essayist gibbeted Boswell; but Boswell, and, similarly, Raikes, have each his value, as giving us an insight into the inner life of the giants of the time-Talleyrand and Dr. Johnson, Wellington and Oglethorpe, Canning and North. This is the view we take of Mr. Raikes and his note-book of the events of an important period-short indeed, just sixteen years, but comprising within its history the Reform Bill, the death of William IV., the repeal of the Corn Laws. Mr. Raikes was a Tory,-unattached, as far as office was concerned, but with his mouth wide open for it,-on pretty intimate terms with the Duke of Wellington, Sir R. Peel, Lord Alvanley, and all the great men of his party, and well acquainted with French politics and statesmen from a halfcompulsory residence in Paris during the latter portion of the time which his diary embraces. All who wish to read history as made intelligible by the individual character of great men, will find ample material for reflection in these four volumes.

That General Sir Charles Napier was one of the ablest and bravest of that wonderful family few will be inclined to deny, especially after the events of the last few months in India, which have verified the old soldier's wrathful predictions in many important particulars, and brought up his name once more, raised now cent. per cent. in the public estimation, to the surface of popular attention and discussion. (2)-The history of the conqueror of Scinde, as given in the volumes called The Life and Opinions of Sir C. Napier, G.C.B., by Lieut.-General Sir W. Napier, K.C.B. (Murray), is interesting, but painful, reading. No doubt the biographer believes his brother to have been underrated by politicians who neglected, and illtreated by the East India Company who hated, him; but he is much mistaken if he thinks that the English people sympathise with his own untiring abuse, and his contemptuous inuendoes against his superiors. Sir C. Napier made enemies for himself by his unpolished rudeness, which

frequently became downright insolence, and his intolerable egotism. That instances of these faults should have been paraded by an enemy we can understand; but what are we to think of a brother who retails, with an approving chuckle, the outpourings of an angry man's ribald wrath against Lord Dalhousie, Sir F. Adam, Colonel Outram, and nearly every man with whom the general had the ill-luck to be connected? Nothing can redeem the biographer from a charge of grievous want of taste and good feeling; and the brave old Indian general is injured materially in his posthumous fame by this wilful publication of the ebulitions of a temperament as hot and stifling as that of the Black Hole at Calcutta. Setting aside this detraction from their merits, the volumes before us well deserve the attention which they have engrossed of late. (3)-By their side may be placed India and Europe Compared, by General John Briggs, of the Madras Army (Allen and Co.), for the benefit of students of Indian politics, as written by one of the old school. This work has a double value, as, although it was not written for the present crisis in our East Indian dominions, it throws a most valuable light upon it, in consequence of the writer's long intercourse with the natives. His views of India's military and financial resources, public works, civil service, education, future prospects, &c., are most ably developed. (4)--Written in a lighter spirit, may be mentioned Six Years in India, by Mrs. Colin Mackenzie (Bentley), a reprint of The Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; to which are prefaced some interesting remarks, written within the last few weeks, in reference to the events which have horrified England and startled Europe. The work is well-written, barring a tinge of Caledonian Puritanism which pervades it. (5)-Captain Rafter's Indian Army (Bryce and Co.) has appeared opportunely. It is a well-written and popular description of the constitution of that great army, one section of which has just been lost to us. Captain Rafter is well known as the translator of Lamartine's History of the Restoration of the Monarchy in France.

We turn with pleasure from the interesting, but depressing, subject of India, to travels in other countries. Let us give the place of honour to Lord Dufferin, a son of one of the three beautiful Sheridans, and, in point of ability, not unworthy of the most high-minded and eloquent of them,his aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Norton. Lord Dufferin takes us with him to "fresh fields and pastures new," even to Iceland. (6)--His Letters from High Latitudes (Murray), detail the account of his voyage in the little schooner yacht Foam, to Iceland and Spitzbergen, in 1856; and the narrative of this enterprising lord-in-waiting to the Queen is given with the same spirit and animation which led him and his "frail bark" a Journey due North. (7)—In a region not far distant were the travels of a lady extended, who describes them in a clever little work, called Unprotected Females in Norway (Routledge and Co.) (8)-Coming to warmer latitudes, we are taken in hand by Mr.R.S. Charnock, who has published his account of a pedestrian tour made in Tyrol, Corinthia, and Salzkammerzut, under the title of A Guide to the Tyrol (Adams). All who are desirous of rambling through a lovely country, this autumn, and exploring a field for observation but little known in the pre-Charnock era, cannot do better than adopt this indefatigable pedestrian and shrewd admirer of nature as their guide on the road. Is old Dame Seacole to be classed among travellers,the unrewarded attendant on the poor soldiers with her welcome womanly ministrations? Poor old lady! Sorrow has once more come upon her,once more, for in her Adventures in Many Lands (9), just published for her benefit by Mr. James Blackwood, we see that her lines have not been cast in very pleasant places,—once more, for after all her toil and philanthropy in the Crimea, a few unlucky adventures made shipwreck of all her little

savings; and how lately, when she reckoned on a handsome sum from her benefit at the Surrey Gardens, she finds the treasury of that unlucky place empty, and herself in the position simply of a creditor of a bankrupt estate, who must dance attendance in Basinghall-street, on the hope of a few shillings in the pound. Poor old lady, say we once more! Extend thy travels to India, and the blessings of the soldier follow thee thither, and back again when the mutiny is quelled! Mrs. Seacole's book, to which a kindly preface has been contributed by Mr. W. H. Russell, is full of adventure, well told and highly interesting. She is the daughter of a soldier and a creole woman who kept a boarding-house at Kingston, Jamaica. The old lady herself, after her husband's death, kept an hotel at Cruces, Panama, in which she was not very successful, and then speculated, with the same results, in the gold mines of New Granada. Her subsequent history is well known. (10)—Tallangetta, or the Squatter's Home, by William Howitt (Longman and Co.), is a story of Australian life which has many elements of interest in it, and did not need a recommendation in the shape of a foolish preface from the pen of Mr. Charles Reade, who has never been to Australia himself, and who seems bent, by these foolish escapades, on throwing away the high position which he had gained in literary society. Tallangetta consists of vivid and simple pictures of colonial life. The story relates to an old English family, who, being deprived of their possessions at home, emigrate to Australia, and remain there until they are reinstated in their ancestral property. (11)-In Mr. Frederic de Brebant Cooper's Wild Adventures in Australia and New South Wales (J. Blackwood) we have a book of a different, but still interesting character, in which personal adventure is mingled with sketches of life in the mining districts of those colonies, in an easy and unpretending way. The work also contains a glossary of the Neungir dialect, spoken by the northern tribes inhabiting the Australian continent. (12)-In 1848, Viscount Faikland was made governor of Bombay, and in 1857 his clever helpmate presents us with a memorial of her Indian experiences, in a graceful and amusing little volume called Chow-Chow (Odds and Ends), including selections from her ladyship's journal, kept in India, Egypt, and Syria.

The most remarkable biographies of the season have been The Life of George Stephenson, by Dr. Smiles; The Life of Andrew Crosse, the Electrician, by his widow; and the Autobiography of Lutfullah Khan.

(13)-George Stephenson was born at Wyham, eight miles from Newcastle, June 9th, 1781, the son of a fireman to a colliery; he died a Knight of Leopold (and might have died Sir George, had he pleased)-a man of great wealth-the friend of Sir Robert Peel-the benefactor of his country -August 12th, 1848. The various methods by which he mounted the successive steps on the social ladder, are graphically related by his admiring biographer, to whose narrative we refer our readers;-How, when eight years old, and minding a neighbour's cows for twopence a day, he invented reed-whisties, and clay engines with hemlock steam-pipes ;-how at fifteen he was made a fireman on fifteen shillings a week, and exclaimed that he was a "made man for life;"-how he taught himself reading, cobbling, writing, shoemaking, arithmetic, and clock cleaning!-how he improved his position, gradually, from July 25th, 1814, when an engine of his making was placed on the tram-road at Killingworth Colliery, drawing coals up a considerable gradient at the rate of four miles an hour, until, in two years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, he had caused the construction of 321 miles of railways in England, at a cost of £11,000,000! (14)-Memorials, Literary and Scientific, of Andrew Crosse, the Electrician (Longman and Co.), present us with a different history in many points, but one like Stephenson's in the courage and indomitable persever

ence of its hero. Mr. Crosse was the representative of an old Somersetshire family, and therefore did not rise into fame from a state of poverty; on the contrary, it was said of him that he could "turn anything but a penny." His life is drawn up with good taste and some literary skill, by his widow. (15)-The Autobiography of Lutfullah Khan, edited by E. B. Eastwick, F.R.S. (Smith, Elder, and Co.), is a curiosity in its way. The Munstri, who traces his pedigree up to Noah, through Ishmael, is a real personage, and tells his story in a very amusing style. About 1806 he runs from his wealthy father-in-law, after the birth of a half-brother, when Lutfullah is degraded from a child of the house to a servant, and makes his way into the English camp. His transactions with his fellow-creatures are interspersed with piquant and shrewd remarks on the habits, customs, and character of the people with whom he had to deal.

(16)—Little Dorrit (Bradbury and Evans) is now finished, and we commend it, in its complete state, to our readers. It is not one of Mr. Dickens' best-far from it, there are the gravest faults, both of style and tone, in it; but it contains passages such as only Dickens can write, and incidents such as only Dickens can imagine.

(17)-The Aphorisms of George Horne, late Bishop of Norwich (Parker and Son), are a collection of witty sayings, mostly uttered by the bishop-some being simply reported by him. Horne was one of the most amiable men, and most orthodox prelates, of his time; and it is a pity that his works are not more studied than they are, especially by the clergy.

(18)-Sketches, by the late Rev. John Eagles (Blackwood, Edinburgh), appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine, and have been reprinted since the death of their accomplished author-once a curate and fellow-wit of Sydney Smith-a prose-poet and artist of the highest order. (19)-The Elements of Drawing, by John Ruskin, M.A. (Smith, Elder, and Co.), is a work designed for beginners, and was suggested by the position the author has benevolently taken upon himself as teacher in the " Working Man's College;" for which all honour to him. For his disinterested zeal in promoting, by his gratuitous services, middle class education, we can pardon a thousand paradoxes and a thousand impertinences of talent.

There died at Futtyghur, in the East Indies, in 1854, a brave servant of Her Majesty-one who was a soldier to the backbone, and to whose character sufficient testimony was borne by the late Miss Edgeworth when she declared that "if Armine Mountain were cut up into a hundred pieces every one would be a gentleman." (20)-The Memoirs of Colond Armine Mountain, C.B.,A.D.C. to the Queen (Longman and Co.), as edited by his widow, form a pleasing sketch of a brave Christian soldier, unflinching in his devotion to his profession, and succumbing only to disease at last.— We are not about to afflict our readers with a narrative of the late newspaper war between Miss Julia Kavanagh, the well-known authoress, on the one side, and Mr. T. C. Newby, the bookseller, and Mr. Kavanagh, the lady's father, on the other. It is sufficient to say that The Hobbies, a Novel (21), by Morgan Kavanagh (T. C. Newby), about which the unseemly dispute arose, is a pretentious piece of absurdity, containing as great an amount of trash as can be met with in a dozen novels of the Laura Matilda school. No wonder Miss Kavanagh objected to the unceremonious use of her name as editress in the prefatory advertisements.-The Society of Arts has done good service in diffusing a knowledge of the liberal sentiments and philanthropic schemes of the Prince Consort among the people in general by the publication of (22) Addresses delivered by H.R.H. Prince Albert (Bell and Dalby), eighteen in number, and bearing on subjects relating to agriculture, commerce, the propagation of the gospel, the Servants' Provident Society, &c., &c.; all indicating sound

sense, good healthy moral feeling, and a laudable earnestness in promoting schemes of religion and benevolence in the country of his adoption, such as the two first Georges and the fourth also would have thought it beneath their dignity to advocate.-The name of Mrs. S. C. Hall is so well known, and her works are so universally appreciated for their gentle and womanly feeling no less than for their interest and their descriptive powers, that we need say no more of her last-(23) A Woman's Story (Hurst and Blackett) than that, on the whole, it is equal to any of her former productions. Two remarkable novels, of another class, have appeared during the season, which have attracted some attention, as being, apparently, the works of beginners in the school of fiction, and as indicating considerable powers(24) Cuthbert St. Elme, M.P., a Narratice of Political Life (Hurst & Blackett), and (25) George Livingston (Parker & Son).-The gentleman who chooses to adopt the pseudonym of " Cuthbert Bede, B. A.," and who has rendered himself, under that saintly designation, amazingly popular among that merry class of undergraduates who are neither as holy as St. Cuthbert nor as venerable as St. Bede, by the clever Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, has produced in his new work-(26) Nearer and Dearer (R. Bentley)-a more sustained story, and one, of course, appealing more to novel readers in general than his funny Oxford skits could affect to do. In this novel he has shown greater knowledge of character, and there is some powerful writing in parts of it.-The_novel-reading world are indebted to Mr. J. Blackwood, of Paternoster Row, for a reprint of the best novels of Mrs. Gore, Mrs. Trollope, and other standard writers, under a cheap form, which will render them accessible to a larger circle of readers than they could hope for at the stereotyped novel price of a guinea and a half. They appear to be carefully edited, and the curtailments rendered necessary by their reduction in size and price have been judiciously and successfully made. Among the works thus reproduced in an eighteen-penny form, we may mention (27) Mrs. Trollope's The Three Cousins, Cornelius Webbe's (28) Man About Town, and Robert Plumier Ward's (29) De Clifford. To Mr. Blackwood also are our children indebted,-in addition to his claims on novel readers, "children of a larger growth," for a series of excellent little books, designed especially for their delectation and instruction. Among the best of them are The Little Traveller (30), and (31) Stories About Birds. On behalf of the little "encumbrances," we tender our anticipatory thanks to Mr. Blackwood for his promise of a Christmas Tree for 1858 (32), similar to that nicely got-up volume under the same title which two previous Christmases we have seen on our nursery table. To Mr. C. H. Clarke we are also indebted for an edition of Willis the Pilot, (33) a capital boy's book, a sequel to the Swiss Family Robinson, by the same publisher. The mention of children brings us, by an easy transition, to schools-children's books to school books. Probably our readers are not much interested in the Choephore of schylus, and, therefore, we will simply say of the edition of that famous tragedy (34), just published by Mr. John Conington (J. W. Parker and Son), indicates scholarship and critical acumen of the highest order, such as might be expected from the accomplished Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford, whose edition of the Agamemnon of Eschylus, with a translation into English verse, met with a decidedly good reception some years ago.-A want of long standing among schoolmasters has been supplied in a way that leaves nothing to be desired, by the publication of a school (35) History of England (Longman & Co.). Mr. C. D. Yonge, B.A., the author, is one of the most distinguished Eton scholars of the day, and the services he has rendered to sound classical literature by his Gradus, his Verse Book, his Phraseological Latin Dictionary, are incalculable. We welcome him now on new and higher ground. The History of England