Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850

A useful and seasonable work, entitled Europe, Past and Present, by Francis H. Ungewitter, LL.D., has been issued by G. P. Putnam, which will be found to contain a mass of information, carefully arranged and digested, of great service to the student of European Geography and History. The author, who is a native German, has published several extensive geographical works in his own country, which have given him the reputation of a sound and accurate scholar in that department of research. He appears to have made a faithful and discriminating use of the abundant materials at his command, and has produced a work which can not fail to do him credit in his adopted land.

The Architecture of Country Houses, by A. J. Downing, published by D. Appleton and Co., is from the pen of a writer whose former productions entitle him to the rank of a standard authority on the attractive subject of the present volume. Mr. Downing has certainly some uncommon qualifications for the successful accomplishment of his task, which requires no less practical experience and knowledge than a sound and cultivated taste. He is familiar with the best publications of previous authors; his pursuits, have led him to a thorough appreciation of the wants and capabilities of country life; he has been trained by the constant influence of rural scenes; and with an eye keenly susceptible to the effect of proportion and form, he brings the refinements of true culture and the suggestions of a vigilant common-sense to the improvement of Rural Architecture, which he wishes to see in harmony with the grand and beautiful scenery of this country. His remarks in the commencement of the volume, with regard to the general significance of architecture are worthy of profound attention. A due observance of the principles, which he eloquently sets forth, would rescue the fine localities for which nature has done so much from the monstrosities in wood and brick with which they are so often deformed. His discussion of the materials and modes of construction are of great practical value. With the abundance of designs which he presents, for every style of rural building, and the careful estimates of the expense, no one who proposes to erect a house in the country can fail to derive great advantage from consulting his well-written and interesting pages.

Tallis, Willoughby, & Co. are publishing as serials the Adventures of Don Quixote, translated by Jarvis, and the Complete Works of Shakspeare, edited by James Orchard Halliwell. The Don Quixote is a cheap edition, embellished with wood cuts by Tony Johannot. The Shakspeare is illustrated with steel engravings by Rogers, Heath, Finden, and Walker, from designs by Henry Warren, Edward Corbould, and other English artists who are favorably known to the public. It is intended that this edition shall contain all the writings ascribed to the immortal dramatist, without distinction, including not only the Poems and well-authenticated Plays, but also the Plays of doubtful origin, or of which Shakspeare is supposed to have been only in part the author.

Herrman J. Meyer, a German publisher in this city, is issuing an edition of Meyer’s Universum, a splendid pictorial work, which is to appear in monthly parts, each containing four engravings on steel, and twelve of them making an annual volume with forty-eight plates. They consist of the most celebrated views of natural scenery, and of rare works of art, selected from prominent objects of interest in every part of the globe. The first number contains an engraving of Bunker Hill Monument, the Ecole Nationale at Paris, Rousseau’s Hermitage at Montmorency, and the Royal Palace at Munich, besides a well-executed vignette on the title-page and cover. The letter-press descriptions by the author are retained in the original language, which, in a professed American edition, is an injudicious arrangement, serving to limit the circulation of the work, in a great degree, to Germans, and to those familiar with the German language.

Mrs. Crowe’s Night Side of Nature, published by J. S. Redfield, is another contribution to the literature of Ghosts and Ghost-Seers, which, like the furniture and costume of the middle ages, seems to be coming into fashion with many curious amateurs of novelties. The reviving taste for this kind of speculation is a singular feature of the age, showing the prevalence of a dissatisfied and restless skepticism, rather than an enlightened and robust faith in spiritual realities. Mrs. Crowe is a decided, though gentle advocate of the preternatural character of the marvelous phenomena, of which probably every country and age presents a more or less extended record. She has collected a large mass of incidents, which have been supposed to bear upon the subject, many of which were communicated to her on personal authority, and were first brought to the notice of the public in her volume. She has pursued her researches, with incredible industry, into the traditions of various nations, making free use of the copious erudition of the Germans in this department, and arranging the facts or legends she has obtained with a certain degree of historical criticism, that gives a value to her work as an illustration of national beliefs, without reference to its character as a hortus siccus of weird and marvelous stories. In point of style, her volume is unexceptionable; its spirit is modest and reverent; it can not be justly accused of superstition, though it betrays a womanly instinct for the supernatural: and without being imbued with any love of dogmas, breathes an unmistakable atmosphere of purity and religious trust. The study of this subject can not be recommended to the weak-minded and timorous, but an omnivorous digestion may find a wholesome exercise of its capacity in Mrs. Crowe’s tough revelations.

A volume of Discourses, entitled Christian Thoughts on Life, by Henry Giles, has been published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, Boston, consisting of a series of elaborate essays, intended to gather into a compact form some fragments of moral experience, and to give a certain record and order to the author’s desultory studies of man’s interior life. Among the subjects of which it treats are The Worth of Life, the Continuity of Life, the Discipline of Life, Weariness of Life, and Mystery in Religion and in Life. The views presented by Mr. Giles are evidently the fruit of profound personal reflection; they glow with the vitality of experience; and in their tender and pleading eloquence will doubtless commend themselves to many human sympathies. Mr. Giles has been hitherto most favorably known to the public in this country, as a brilliant rhetorician, and an original and piquant literary critic; in the present volume, he displays a rare mastery of ethical analysis and deduction.

W. Phillips & Co., Cincinnati, have issued an octavo volume of nearly seven hundred pages, composed of Lectures on the American Eclectic System of Surgery, by Benjamin L. Hill, M.D., with over one hundred illustrative engravings. It is based on the principles of the medical system of which the author is a distinguished practitioner.

The National Temperance Offering, edited by S. F. Cary, and published by R. Vandien, is got up in an expensive style, and is intended as a gift-book worthy the patronage of the advocates of the Temperance Reform. In addition to a variety of contributions both in prose and poetry from several able writers, it contains biographical sketches of some distinguished Temperance men, accompanied with their portraits, among whom we notice Rev. Dr. Beecher, Horace Greeley, John H. Hawkins, T. P. Hunt, and others.

Fashions for Early Autumn

A Promenade Dress of a beautiful lavender taffetas, the front of the skirt trimmed with folds of the same, confined at regular distances with seven flutes of lavender gauze ribbon, put on the reverse of the folds; a double fluted frilling, rather narrow, encircles the opening of the body, which is made high at the back, and closed in the front with a fluting of ribbon similar to that on the skirt; demi-long sleeves, cut up in a kind of wave at the back, so as to show the under full sleeve of spotted white muslin. Chemisette of fulled muslin, confined with bands of needlework. Scarf of white China crape, beautifully embroidered, and finished with a deep, white, silk fringe. Drawn capote of pink crape, adorned in the interior with half-wreaths of green myrtle.

Costume For A Young Lady. – A dress of white barège trimmed with three deep vandyked flounces put on close to each other; high body, formed of worked inlet, finished with a stand-up row round the throat; the sleeves descend as low as the elbow, where they are finished with two deep frillings, vandyked similar to the flounces. Half-long gloves of straw-colored kid, surmounted with a bracelet of black velvet. Drawn capote of white crape, adorned with clusters of the rose de mott both in the interior and exterior. Pardessus of pink glacé silk, trimmed with three frillings of the same, edged with a narrow silk fringe, which also forms a heading to the same; over each hip is a trimming en tablier formed of the fringe; short sleeves, trimmed with one fulling edged with fringe; these sleeves are of the same piece as the cape, not cut separate; the trimming over the top of the arms being similar to that under, and formed also of fringe; this pardessus is perfectly round in its form, and only closes just upon the front of the waist.

Morning Caps which are slightly ornamented, vary more in the way in which they are trimmed, than in the positive form; some being trimmed with chicorées, wreaths of gauze ribbon, or knobs of ribbon edged with a festooned open-work encircling a simple round of tulle, or what is perhaps prettier, a cluster of lace. A pretty form, differing a little from the monotonous round, is composed of a round forming a star, the points being cut off; these points are brought close together, and are encircled with a narrow bavolet, the front part being formed so as to descend just below the ears, approaching somewhat to the appearance of the front of a capote. A pretty style of morning cap are those made of India muslin, à petit papillon, flat, edged with a choice Mechlin lace, and having three ricochets and a bunch of fancy ribbon placed upon each side, from which depend the brides or strings. Others are extremely pretty, made of the appliqué lace, rich Mechlin, or needlework, and are sometimes ornamented with flowers, giving a lightness to their appearance.

Morning Costume. – Dress and pardessus of printed cambric muslin, the pattern consisting of wreaths and bouquets of flowers. Jupon of plain, white cambric muslin, edged with a border of rich open needlework. The sleeves of the pardessus are gathered up in front of the arm. The white under-sleeves, which do not descend to the wrists, are finished by two rows of vandyked needlework. A small needlework collar. Lace cap of the round form, placed very backward on the head, and trimmed with full coques of pink and green ribbon at each ear.

1

In support of this opinion, which we know is opposed to the popular feeling of many in the present day, we venture to quote what Miss Porter herself repeats, as said to her by Madame de Stael: “She frequently praised my revered mother for the retired manner in which she maintained her little domestic establishment, yielding her daughters to society, but not to the world.” We pray those we love, to mark the delicate and most true distinction, between “society” and the “world.” “I was set on a stage,” continued De Stael, “I was set on a stage, at a child’s age, to be listened to as a wit and worshiped for my premature judgment. I drank adulation as my soul’s nourishment, and I cannot now live without its poison; it has been my bane, never an aliment. My heart ever sighed for happiness, and I ever lost it, when I thought it approaching my grasp. I was admired, made an idol, but never beloved. I do not accuse my parents for having made this mistake, but I have not repeated it in my Albertine” (her daughter.) “She shall not

‘Seek for love, and fill her arms with bays.’

I bring her up in the best society, yet in the shade.”

2

Miss Porter never told me she was an Irishwoman, but once she questioned me concerning my own parentage and place of birth; and upon my explaining that my mother was an English woman, my father Irish, and that I was born in Ireland, which I quitted early in life, she observed her own circumstances were very similar to mine. For my own part, I have no doubt that she was Irish by birth and by descent on the father’s side, but it will be no difficult matter to obtain direct evidence of the facts; and we hope that some Irish patriotic friend will make due inquiries on the subject. During her life, I had no idea of her connection with Ireland, or I should certainly have ascertained if my own country had a claim of which it may be justly proud.

3

In his early days the President of the Royal Academy painted a very striking portrait of Jane Porter, as “Miranda,” and Harlowe painted her in the canoness dress of the order of St. Joachim.

4

“Feels by a secret instinct;” – A sentiment of this nature is finely expressed by Lucan in the passage beginning, “Advenisse diem,” &c. The circumstance by which Lucan chiefly defeats the grandeur and simplicities of the truth, is, the monstrous numerical exaggeration of the combatants and the killed at Pharsalia.

5

It is very evident that Dr. Arnold could not have understood the position of politics in Rome, when he allowed himself to make a favorite of Pompey. The doctor hated aristocrats as he hated the gates of Erebus. Now Pompey was not only the leader of a most selfish aristocracy, but also their tool. Secondly, as if this were not bad enough, that section of the aristocracy to which he had dedicated his services was an odious oligarchy; and to this oligarchy, again, though nominally its head, he was in effect the most submissive of tools. Cæsar, on the other hand, if a democrat in the sense of working by democratic agencies, was bending all his efforts to the reconstruction of a new, purer, and enlarged aristocracy, no longer reduced to the necessity of buying and selling the people in mere self-defense. The everlasting war of bribery, operating upon universal poverty, the internal disease of Roman society, would have been redressed by Cæsar’s measures, and was redressed according to the degree in which those measures were really brought into action. New judicatures were wanted, new judicial laws, a new aristocracy, by slow degrees a new people, and the right of suffrage exercised within new restrictions – all these things were needed for the cleansing of Rome; and that Cæsar would have accomplished this labor of Hercules was the true cause of his death. The scoundrels of the oligarchy felt their doom to be approaching. It was the just remark of Napoleon, that Brutus (but still more, we may say, Cicero), though falsely accredited as a patriot, was, in fact, the most exclusive and the most selfish of aristocrats.

6

White dove.

7

Rich.

8

Small potatoes.

9

By-road.

10

The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind; an Autobiographical Poem. By William Wordsworth. London. Moxon. New York, Appleton & Co.

11

Lady Cathcart’s marriage to Macguire took place 18th May, 1745.