12 MARCH 1859, Page 18

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

A novel by Mr. Trappe, a volume of poetry by Mr. Patrick Scott, and annotations upon Paley's "Moral Philosophy," are the chief publi-

cations of the week. The novel we expect will speedily be returned to;

about the poetry we are not so clear. "Footpaths between Two Worlds" is a long religious, not to say theological poem, whose main

subjects are to establish the existence of a Deity from proofs of order

and design in the physical world, as well as in the mind of man' and to prove the truth of Christianity by a survey of Mahometanism and the

religions of the ancient world. The plan, especially in the working, ap- pears to us to be rather prosaic than poetical; that is the skeleton re- sembles a treatise as much as a poem. The execution though by no means weak or commonplace, wants force and sustaining power for so long a work. In the execution so far as we have read there is a defi- ciency in that felicity of illustration which didactic poems require as well

as a want of the condensation n to vigour. The "Footpaths" is followed by some "scenes from the Life of Edwin," the Saxon king, and by some occasional poems.

The annotations of Dr. Whately on Paley's "Moral Philosophy" (ex- cluding the "Political Philosophy") are often somewhat loose in style. In argument, the Archbishop is most successful when tracing the entan- glements and errors in which Paley involved himself, by rejecting an innate moral sense, and relying upon positive command and utility as the origin and reason of morals. The most cogent and conclusive argu- ment on any single fallacy is the exposure of Paley's mode of reasoning from single and exceptional instances to general laws.

Boom

The Bertram.. A Novel. By Anthony Trollope, Author of " Barchester Towers," &c. In three volumes.

Footpaths]between Two Worlds, and other Poems. By Patrick Scott.

Paley's Moral Philosophy. With Annotations by Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin.

A Handbook for India; being an Account of the three Presidencies and of the Overland Route ; intended as a Guide for Travellers, Officers, and Civilians ; with Vocabularies and Dialogues of the Spoken Languages of India. With Travelling Map and Plans of Towns. Part I.—Madras. Part II.—Bombay.

.Dictionary of the United States Congress. By Charles Lanman.—A work of considerable utility, as a book of reference on facts or questions connected with the legislature and government of the United States. It contains a biographical dictionary of all the Members of Congress, whether as Representatives or Senators, from the establishment of the constitution to the present time. These lives, though often extremely curt, are of use as telling something of the persons, and are not without the peculiar interest which belongs to the names of men who have filled a certain space in the busy world, and even in great affairs, but have altogether passed away from its memory. It may also be remarked to the credit of Mr. Lanman's judgment, that he does not, like so many, allow his materials to run away with him. Even lives such as those of Webster and Jefferson, though of course containing the principal inci- dents, are kept down to his scale.

There is also an appendix of valuable matter, including Lists of Pre- sidents of the Senate, Speakers of the House of Representatives, the successive Administrations, full analytical accounts of the Presidential elections, and like matters.

Br. Prince's Journal—An emanation from the Agapemone, descriptive of the rise and progress of religion in the writer's soul, from 1835, when Brother Prince was in a doubtful condition from a "spirit of self righteousness" and other sins, to 1839 when he had reached a state of grace. The carnal part of the book' relates to the journalist's residence at the college of Lampeter, as a student for the church, having quitted the medical profession to which he had been bred, "after laying the matter before God in prayer," and procuring his mother's consent. There are also accounts of visits and excursions, when he sometimes fell among the profane, sometimes among outward professors ; while towards the close he gets married, though yet a student. The more spiritual part of the volume, requires his own words and his own types. "The following Journal is a record of this work of grace in that believer, described day by day as it was carried on in his soul by the Holy Ghost; and the purpose for which it is now made public is, as was before observed, to exhibit to the professing church of Christ AN ACTUAL INSTANCE OF THE COMPLETE ACCOMPLISHMENT BY THE GOSPEL OF ALL THAT FOR WHICH THE GOSPEL WAS arm:, namely, the destruction of the work of the devil in the human soul."

The journal is not equal to some of the earlier publications of me- thodism, in raciness or interest, having much less unction and perhaps less earnestness. It is readable from its variety ; for the subjects are incessantly changing from such troubles as a toothache or a cold in the head, up to wrestlings with Satan and divine communications. It is also curious as indicating a peculiar aspect of life. This picture of some brethren not so much amiss.

"Three of his friends came in the evening ; much talk about splendid conversions;' great demonstrations of wrath against the unconverted : faith, faith, assurance, assurance, with warm discussions upon preachers and their doctrines • all this, too, in persons scarcely awakened, and who know little

or nothing of their own sin. They talk of the destruction of the wicked as though it were a pantomime ; but if they had ever experienced the ter- rors of the Lord,' they would not speak so lightly of them ; neither, if they knew what an evil and a bitter thing sin is' would they talk so flippantly about it : there was no smiting upon the breast, and saying, 'God be merci- ful to me a sinner ! ' much religious and I think self-righteous, excitement in all this, but very little evangelical humiliation."

A besetting sin of Brother Prince in these early times was a timorous or, complying mind, which prevented him from speaking "faithfully." There was, however, no restraint upon his pen, and free comments upon the people he met with are pretty thickly interspersed in his pages. Take a few bite.

"My soul was in bitterness while I sat with poor G., who, though past eighty, is in outer darkness. At such an age, her mind and conversation are quite trifling: when pressed upon personal religion it produced vexation. The sense of her truly awful condition filled my soul with anguish ; I had no heart to pray for her it seemed so very far gone. Yet the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save ; ' but we measure His mighty power by our own miserable apprehensions of it. "My friend E. proved a sorrow to my soul. I spent Sunday with him, and to my great disappointment found his religion to be quite doctrinal, and unconnected with any conversion of the heart to God. He has never known a broken heart and contrite spirit. What was worse, he resisted my testi- monE, "Have been blessed with the spirit of intercession on behalf of this Col- lege [Lampeter]. How truly awful is the condition of these young men ! the fearful responsibility connected with the charge of souls unheeded-

' blind leaders of the blind;' walking in darkness, they know not whither they go. Oh, may the living God enlighten them ! We look for something, as He has stirred up Brother R. and myself to very fervent prayer for them?'

The Prince of the House of David, or ThreeYears lathe Holy City. Edited by the Reverend Professor J. H. Ingraham, Rector of St. John's Church, Mobile.—A series of letters supposed to be written by the daughter of an Alexandrian Jew of high standing, who has gone on a visit to her rela- tions at Jerusalem, and arrives there when John the Baptist is in the full vigour of his preaching. The rest is obvious. Through her own obser- vations or the account of her friends, Adina gives a description of the leading events in the history of Christ, from his baptism in the Jordan, to the Ascension. With these are mingled social and topographical pictures of Jerusalem and there is a lover, a ROHM officer who rescues Adina from seine drunken soldiers. The book is cleverly contrived and pleasantly written, but the mixture of the current tale writing style with the venerable and weighty simplicity of Scripture forms a singular jumble, especially lathe scenes relating to the Crucifixion. The Romans, too, are of a very modern stamp.

The Cave in the Hills.—A tale of martyrdom and persecution con- nected with the early British Church. Viriathus, a Britain of royal de- scent, marries Snetonia a noble Roman lady, whose pagan belief has been shaken by her Christian slave Lydia. When the husband finds matters out, he denounces Lydia, who is martyred. By the zeal of his wife, and the enmity of foes, one of whom wishes to get his proper, Viriitthus is compromised, and compelled with his wife to fly to the woods, where he passes throug'h various adventures. The author ex- hibits more knowledge than tale writers often display of historical ar- chreology, but he is somewhat deficient in dramatic power.

Heart-Break ; the Trials of Literary Life.—The literary trials in this volume, arise from a young man refusing to go into partnership with his father, an eminent provincial merchant, and betaking himself to London, where he can get no literary employment, knowing nothing about his trade. The "heart-break," of which he dies, but only after a good many years is caused by the death of his sister, who has been entrapped into a false marriage by a religious lord ; though her father is quite the lord's equal in wealth and living. The whole is mere absurdity apparently imitated from the Diary of a Physician, without any of Warren's force, and with more than his improbabilities and inconsistencies.

The Flirting Page, and other Poems. By. Charles Dranfield and George Denham Halifax.—" The Flirting Page" is a legend of Normandy, de- rived from Bell's "Wayside Pictures.' It is told in the manner of "The Ingoldsby Legends,' with much fluency and some liveliness, but with that fatal facility in versification and jingle which leads to undue elongation. Some °occasional poems are added to the rattling legend, which, if not remarkable for originality, have more force than the gene- ral run of verses.

All these are by Mr. Dranfield. The contributions of Mr. Halifax are also oceasional, and something more than a dozen in number, nine of which are strung together rather by the title of Love's Phases than any absolute connexion insthe themes. They all pass beyond the bulk of verses both in force and finish, if anything exceeding Mr. Dranfield in these points; but they sometimes recall Tennyson.

The Iliad of Homer Book With English Notes for the use

of Schools.—One of Messrs. John Henry and James Parker's series of Greek Text with Notes, and a very capital one too. There are the first six books of the Iliad in a good Greek type, with an introduction point- ing out the lingual and grammatical peculiarities of Homer, and terse notes for the most part grammatical or explanatory, but occasionally calling attention to manners, tire.

Private Bill _Legislation. By S. B. Bristowe' Esq., Barrister-at-Law. The operative standing orders of the Houses of Lords and Commons, pre- faced by a narrative of the steps to be taken in introducing a private bill, and the successive stages through which it must pass, the whole accom- panied by notes. It is an important book, but only attractive to parties practically interested in the subject.

The Church Distinguished. By Caleb Webb, Author of "the Sensi- sibility of Separate Souls Considered."—A not very lucid attempt to distinguish the Church, from the world at large, and the professing Christians. The arguments are metaphysical as well as religious.

The bulk of the reprints are of a alight or tract-like kind ; as a series of sanitary papers by Mr. Godwin collected from the Builder, under the title of Town Swamps," and descriptive of the sickness-breeding localities of London with a glance at the country ; or an article on "Parliamentary Reform" by Mr. Baghot, reprinted with additions from the National Review. Mr. Bohn, however, has completed his in- dispensable companion to the reader of history, the "Index to Dates," by the publication of the second volume. The same publisher has further sent forth a new and complete edition of Frederick Schlegel's "Lectures on the History of Literature." The translation hitherto tinted in this country and America, and attributed to the late Mr. was not only free, but leaped over difficulties. Both these deficiencies Mr. Bohn's translation avoids, as it also aims at transfusing the rich and poetical style of the original into the version. A third volume of Evelyn's Diary, the commencement of which we chronicled not long since, 113 also sent us by Mr. Bohn.

An Index of Bates. Comprehending the principal facts in the Chronology and History of the World, from the Earliest to the Present Time. Alphabeucally arranged. Being a complete index to the enlarged Edition of Blair's Chro-

nological Tables. By S. Willoughby Bosse. In two volumes. Volume II. K.—Z.

Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, from the German

of Frederick Schlegel, now first completely translated, and accompanied by a General Index.

Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, P.R.& To which is suijoined the Private Correspondence between King Charles I. and Slr Edward Nicholas, and between Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon,. and Sir Ri- chard Browne. Edited from the original MSS. at Wotton, by William Bray,

Esq., F.R.S. A new edition, in four volumes. Corrected, revised, and En- larged. Volume III.

Town Swamps and Social Bridges. The Sequel of "A Glance at the Homes Of the Thousands." By George Godwin, F.B.S., Editor of the 's Builder," &c. Parliamentary Reform. An Essay. By.Walter Bagshot. The Parent's Cabinet of Amusement and Instruction. Part TV.

Three Lectures on Bducation. By S. A. Pears, D.D., Head Master of Reptou School. Second Edition.