The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 4, April, 1852 Part 32

Mr. TICKNOR'S admirable _History of Spanish Literature_ by no means fails of the high consideration to which it is ent.i.tled from the best critics of Europe. One of the best translations of it is in Spanish, by Don PASCUAL DE GAYANGOS Y DON ENRIQUE DE VEDIA (_con adiciones y notas criticas_), Mr. Ticknor having communicated some notes and corrections to the two translators, who have added from their own store. A second translation is coming out in Germany, also containing important additions, in part from material and suggestions furnished by the accomplished author.

ARVINE'S _Anecdotes of Literature and the Arts_ is an agreeable miscellany; but the neglect of the editor to give credits in cases where he adopts entire pages from well-known books, deserves rebuke. The eighth number has been published by Gould & Lincoln of Boston, and it completes the work.

The work of Mr. STILES, which we have noticed elsewhere in this number of the _International_, we understand, will be published by the Harpers, in two large octavo volumes, about the first of May. It contains a complete history of the revolutionary proceedings in the Austrian empire in 1848. Mr. Stiles witnessed much that he describes. Each section is introduced by an historical survey of the country where the events described occurred. Thus Venice, Prague, and Vienna are brought before the reader in all their past glory and recent political vicissitudes.

The Hungarian war is amply chronicled. The work is moderate in tone, authentic, fresh, and abounding in interesting facts. It will be ill.u.s.trated by engravings, executed in Germany, of the Emperor, Archduke John, Kossuth, and other chief characters.

Dr. A. K. GARDINER, whose clever book about Paris, under the t.i.tle of _Old Wine in New Bottles_, is well known, has just published a noticeable lecture, delivered before the College of Physicians and Surgeons, on the _History of the Art of Midwifery_. It is most conclusive upon the point of the unfitness of women for any of the more delicate and important duties in obstetrics, and is a sufficient argument for the immediate abolition of the so-called "Female Colleges."

We recommend it to the attention of readers who feel any interest in the subject.--(Stringer & Townsend.)

Mrs. H. C. CONANT, wife of the learned Professor of Hebrew in the Rochester University, has published (through Lewis Colby, Na.s.sau-street) another of NEANDER'S Commentaries, done into terse and vigorous English--_The Epistle of James Practically Explained_. It is needless to praise the great German, and it will readily be believed, by those who are acquainted with the fine abilities and thorough scholars.h.i.+p of Mrs.

Conant, that this translation is in all respects admirable.

We are soon to have a new dramatic poem from Mr. GEORGE H. BOKER, whose _Calaynos_, _Anne Bullen_, and _Ivory Carver and other Poems_, have secured to him very high and well-deserved reputation as a literary artist. We do not think any sonnets written in this country are to be preferred to Mr. Boker's, and his _Ballad of Sir John Franklin_, published a few months ago in this magazine, is full of imagination, and is marked throughout with the nicest skill in execution.

The last work of the late Professor STUART, a _Commentary on the Book of Proverbs_, has been published by M. W. DODD, in a large duodecimo volume. It contains a full account of the princ.i.p.al commentaries written on this book, and the translations and paraphrases made into different languages, with a new version, and exegetical remarks. A memoir of Professor Stuart is in preparation.

Mr. RICHARD B. KIMBALL, the accomplished author of _St. Leger_, leaves New York in a few days for a tour through Europe. No one among our younger authors has risen more rapidly in the public regard, or established a good reputation in literature upon a surer basis.

Imagination, scholars.h.i.+p, and profound reflection, characterize nearly all his performances. The admirable story written by him for the present number of the _International_, we believe, is true in every essential but the name of the heroine. It is a reminiscence of Mr. Kimball's student life in Paris, where, for a time, he walked the hospitals with his friend, the well-known Dr. O. H. Partridge, now one of the most distinguished physicians of Philadelphia, who is one of the dramatis personae of _Emilie de Coigny_.

Mr. JOHN P. KENNEDY p.r.o.nounced, in Baltimore, on the anniversary of the birth of Was.h.i.+ngton, a very eloquent and wise discourse, in which the state of the nation with respect to possible entanglements in foreign affairs, and implications by needless artificial ties in the vicissitudes of European politics, were treated in a manner worthy of a statesman of the school of the Great Chief. The occasion was also improved in Philadelphia by the Rev. Dr. BOARDMAN, who, in a discourse ent.i.tled _Was.h.i.+ngton or Kossuth_ (published by Lippincott, Grambo, & Co.), discusses the same great subjects in a masterly argument for the observance of the principles of the Farewell Address.

An elaborate attack on the Society of Friends appeared lately in Dublin, and has been republished in Philadelphia, under the t.i.tle of _Quakerism, or the Story of My Life_. It was written by a Mrs. GREER, the daughter of an eminently respectable Irish Quaker, who was herself connected with the society for forty years, and so had abundant opportunities of becoming familiar with the peculiarities of the system. But the book is vulgar, malignant, and evidently altogether undeserving of credit in regard to facts. The points obnoxious to ridicule are broadly caricatured, and the most distinguished and blameless characters are introduced in the most offensive manner, as if to gratify personal spleen or a disposition to slander.

The Neander Library, recently purchased by the University of Rochester, consists of 4,500 volumes, and the price paid was only $2,300. About 350 of the volumes are large folios, and many of the works in the collection are of the choicest and rarest editions. We observe that an attempt to show that there was even the slightest possible degree of unfairness on the part of the Rochester faculty in obtaining this library, which was much desired by a western college, has most signally failed.

We commend to our readers as the best literary journal in this country, the _To Day_, recently established in Boston by CHARLES HALE, a thoroughly educated and judicious editor.

_Recent Deaths_

WILLIAM WARE was born at Hingham, in Ma.s.sachusetts, on the third of August, 1797. He was a descendant in the fifth generation from Robert Ware, one of the earliest settlers of the colony, who came from England about the year 1644. His father was Henry Ware, D. D., many years honorably distinguished by his connection with the Divinity School at Cambridge, and the late Henry Ware, jr., D. D., was his elder brother.

His only living brother is Dr. John Ware, who also shares of the literary tastes and talents of his family, and has written its history.

William Ware was graduated at Harvard University in 1816. After reading theology the usual term he was on the 18th of December, 1821, settled over the Unitarian society of Chambers street, New-York, where he remained about sixteen years. He gave little to the press except a few sermons, and four numbers of a religious miscellany called _The Unitarian_, until near the close of this period, when he commenced the publication in the Knickerbocker Magazine of those brilliant papers which in the autumn of 1836 were given to the world under the t.i.tle of _Zen.o.bia, or the Fall of Palmyra, an Historical Romance_. Before the completion of this work he had resigned his pastoral office and removed to Brookline, near Boston. The romance of Zen.o.bia is in the form of letters to Marcus Curtius, at Rome, from Lucius Manlius Piso, a senator, who is supposed to have been led by circ.u.mstances of a private nature to visit Palmyra toward the close of the third century, to have become acquainted with the queen and her court, to have seen the City of the Desert in its greatest magnificence, and to have witnessed its destruction by the Emperor Aurelian. For the purposes of romantic fiction the subject is perhaps the finest that had not been appropriated in all ancient history; and the treatment of it, which is highly picturesque and dramatic throughout, shows that the author had been a successful student of the inst.i.tutions, manners and social life of the age he attempted to ill.u.s.trate.

Mr. Ware's second romance, _Probus, or Rome in the Third Century_, was published in the summer of 1838. It is a sort of sequel to the Zen.o.bia, and is composed of letters purporting to be written by Piso from Rome to Fausta, the daughter of Gracchus, one of the old Palmyrene ministers. In the first work Piso meets with Probus, a Christian teacher, and is partially convinced of the truth of his doctrine; he is now a disciple, and a sharer of the persecutions which marked the last days of the reign of Aurelian. The characters in Probus are skilfully drawn and contrasted, and with a deeper moral interest, from the frequent discussions of doctrine which it contains, the romance has the cla.s.sical style and spirit which characterized its predecessor.

Mr. Ware's third work is ent.i.tled _Julian, or Scenes in Judea_, and was published in 1841. The hero is a Roman, of Hebrew descent, who visits the land of his ancestors, to gratify a liberal curiosity, during the last days of the Saviour. Every thing connected with Palestine at this period is so familiar that the ground might seem to be sacred to History and Religion; but it has often been invaded by the romancer, and perhaps never with more success than in the present instance. Although Julian has less freshness than Zen.o.bia, it has an air of truth and sincerity that renders it scarcely less interesting.

About the time of the publication of Julian, Mr. Ware was attacked with Epilepsy, while in his pulpit, at Lexington, near Boston, and he suffered all the residue of his life from disease and apprehension; but his illness did not affect his intelligence or its activity, and he continued to devote himself to congenial studies, for several years, chiefly as editor of _The Christian Examiner_. For a short period he was pastor of the Unitarian society at West Cambridge, but the condition of his health did not permit a regular discharge of his functions, for which, indeed, he was scarcely fitted in any thing but a spirit of humility and piety. His tastes and capacities would have secured for him greater triumphs in any department of pictorial or plastic art, to which he was always insensibly drawn by instinct and congenial studies.

In 1848 Mr. Ware pa.s.sed several months abroad, and after his return he delivered in _Lectures on European Capitals_ the best fruits of his travel. These Lectures have recently been published in a very attractive volume, which has been favorably received in this country and in England. Among his unprinted writings is a series of Lectures on the _Life, Works, and Genius of Was.h.i.+ngton Allston_. He died on the 19th of February.

The romances of Mr. Ware betray a familiarity with the civilization of the ancients, and are written in a graceful, pure and brilliant style.

In our literature they are peculiar, and they will bear a favorable comparison with the most celebrated historical romances relating to the same scenes and periods which have been written abroad. They have pa.s.sed through many editions in Great Britain, and have been translated into German and other languages of the continent.

JOHN FRAZEE, the sculptor, died at the age of sixty, on the--th of March, at the house of his daughter, in New Bedford, Ma.s.sachusetts. The _Evening Post_ remarks that "he was a man of decided talent for sculpture, but the necessity of employing himself in other occupations, prevented his attaining that skill which, under more auspicious circ.u.mstances, would have been within his reach." Mr. Frazee was born in Brunswick, N.J., and in early life was a farmer and stone-cutter. One of his first attempts at sculpture which attracted notice, was a clever female bust, a likeness of one of his own family, exhibited in the gallery of the Academy of Design. He afterwards, at the request of the bar of New-York, was employed in the mural tablet and bust of John Welles, which fills a conspicuous place in St Paul's Church. This production, with others subsequently executed, attracted the attention of the Trustees of the Boston Athenaeum, and at their request, in 1834, he proceeded to Boston, and modelled a series of busts of eminent men in that city--Webster, Bowditch, Prescott, Story, J. Lowell, and T. H.

Perkins. Afterwards he went to Richmond, where he produced the likeness of John Marshall, copies of which adorn the Court rooms of New York, New-Orleans, and the Capitol of Virginia. On his return he visited President Jackson, at whose house he executed an inimitable head of that extraordinary man. Among his other productions were heads of General Lafayette, in 1824, De Witt Clinton, John Jay, Bishop Hobart, Dr.

Milnor, Dr. Stearns, Nathaniel Prime, George Griswold, Eli Hart, &c. The monument, however, which is destined to perpetuate his fame, is the New York Custom-House. This edifice was commenced in 1834 by another gentleman, who, when he had finished the base, abandoned the work and withdrew his plans. Mr. Frazee was obliged to commence _de novo_, and in 1843 had completed the work. During the erection of the Custom-House, from the dampness of its material and concomitant causes, he contracted a disorder which caused paralysis, from which he never recovered. For several years he held a subordinate post under the Collector. His last effort with the chisel was in giving the finis.h.i.+ng touch to the bust of General Jackson, which had remained in his studio seventeen years, without an order for completion. This was in November last, and while a.s.siduously at work, his mallet fell from his hand, and his worn-out body followed it to the floor."

JOHN PARK, M. D., died in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, on the 2d of March, aged seventy-eight. He was an active member of the old Federal party in Ma.s.sachusetts, during the administration of Jefferson and Madison, and exerted a wide and important influence by his well-known journal, _The Boston Repertory_. At a subsequent period, he established a private school for young women, which acquired a celebrity second to that of no similar educational inst.i.tution in the old Commonwealth. He was distinguished for his cultivated literary tastes, his uncommon purity of character, his fine social qualities, and his cordial and attractive manners. Dr. Park was the father of Mrs. L. G. Hall, wife of the Rev.

Dr. Hall, of Providence, the auth.o.r.ess of _Miriam_, and other successful productions, and of Mr. John C. Park, an eminent lawyer in Boston. Mrs.

Osgood and several other distinguished literary women were among his pupils.

WILLIAM THOMPSON, of Belfast, the naturalist of Ireland, died in London on the 17th February. Mr. Thompson was born in 1805, and from earliest youth was attached to scientific and literary studies. For the last fifteen years his name has been before the world of science in connection with arduous researches on the natural history of Ireland.

The numerous memoirs published by him, chiefly in scientific periodicals, and latterly in the _Annals of Natural History_, of which he was a warm supporter, extend in their subjects over all departments of zoology, and several are devoted to botanical investigations. He was constantly on the watch for new facts bearing on the natural history of his native island, which could boast of no more truly patriotic son. At the meeting of the British a.s.sociation, at Cork, he read an elaborate report on the _Fauna of Ireland_, since published _in extenso_ in the a.s.sociation _Transactions_; and it was his intention to communicate a continuation of that report at the Belfast meeting. He did not confine his inquiries to Irish subjects, but added considerably to the natural history of several parts of England and Scotland; and when Professor Forbes proceeded to the aegean at the invitation of Captain Graves, Mr.

Thompson, himself an intimate friend of that distinguished officer, accompanied him, and devoted the short time he was in the Archipelago to zoological observations, since published, chiefly on the migration of birds. His love of ornithology was intense, and the results of his labors in that department are narrated with charming details in the volumes that have been published of his great work on _The Natural History of Ireland_. His name is a.s.sociated with many discoveries, and numerous species of new creatures have been named after him. His reputation stood equally high on the Continent and in America, and he had been elected an honorary member of several foreign societies. He numbered among his intimate friends and correspondents all the eminent naturalists of the day. His love of the fine arts was second only to his love of science, and for many years he was one of the most active promoters of tasteful pursuits, especially of painting, in Ireland. He was a gentleman of independent means, and of no profession.

ROBERT REINICK, deservedly the most popular of recent song writers in Germany, died at Dresden early in February. He was born at Dantzic, in 1805, and was educated an artist, but he never painted more than one picture which attained any considerable reputation. His sketches were, however, remarkable for great delicacy of feeling, and of touch, a genial humor and an endless variety of fancy. But it was his songs that first and most widely made him known to the public. Without any surprising features of genius, they were so natural, so replete with true and happy sentiment, and flowed so sweetly and melodiously in a spontaneous beauty of language, that they were every where taken up, and still remain the intimate favorites of the people, but especially of artists, to whose peculiar life and customs many of them are devoted.

One of the most pleasing books ever published in Germany, was his _Songs of a Painter_, which was ill.u.s.trated with designs from all the prominent artists of Dusseldorf. Its appearance made an epoch in the book trade, and introduced the many splendid ill.u.s.trated works that have succeeded it. It is some years since we read these songs, but their naivete, tenderness, and frolic humor are still fresh in our memory. Reinick also had a great skill in the writing of story books for children, and ill.u.s.trating them with his own drawings. One of these, the _Black Aunt_, has been translated into English, and was published in this city some three or four years since. The poet died quite suddenly, and was s.n.a.t.c.hed from a life full of happiness, amid constant artistic activity, and the love of his family, and a boundless circle of friends. All Dresden sorrowed at his death, and his funeral procession seemed to embrace the entire city.

WILLIAM HENRY OXBERRY, comedian, was the son of the once eminent actor Oxberry, and was born in Brownlow-street, Bloomsbury, on the 21st of April, 1808. He was educated at Merchant Tailors' school; and subsequently studied with an artist and in a lawyer's office. At length he was apprenticed to a surgeon: and was asked by Sir Astley Cooper, during an examination, whether, "when he saw his father convulse the audience with laughter, he felt no ambition to tread in his shoes?" No doubt he did, for he soon after made his essay at the Rawstone-street private theatre, in the character of _Abel Day_, which he performed to the _Captain Careless_ of Mr. F. Matthews. His public commencement was deferred till the 17th March, 1825, for the Olympic, in the part of _Sam Swipes_, in "The High Road to Marriage." He remained not long there, but took a situation under Mr. Leigh Hunt, on the _Examiner_. Shortly afterwards he returned to the stage, and went on a provincial tour, and finally appeared in 1832 at the Strand Theatre, as _Fathom_, in "The Hunchback." Since that period he was seen with credit in turn at every theatre in the metropolis. On the 11th December, 1831, he married Ellen Malcombe Lancaster. He also became manager of the English Opera-House, but was not successful. The loss of his wife was a misfortune, and his subsequent career was not prosperous. He died on the 28th of February.