the chief secret of the art of war consists in two things: to give and not to receive, &c., (tout le secret des armes ne consiste qui en deux choses; á donner et à ne point receivor, &c.,) contrasts strongly with the awkward buffoonery of Monsieur Bagasse. Our author succeeds much better in describing the scholarship of Harrington, taking occasion at the same time to give us his own views on the theory which makes Bacon the author of the Shakesperian plays : "For he was a scholar born, and in this room he kept alive the traditions which have made the name of Harrington dear to scholarship and man. It is a shining name in literature and history, and bears the recorded honors due to names linked with the memory of human pleasure or the cause of human service. There was one Harrington in the days of the Eighth Henry-a polished poet, who surpassed the verse of his time. There was another, his child, the darling of Queen Elizabeth, a sprightly wit and poet, who sunned his muse in the brightness of the bright Britannic days, wrought well for belles-lettres and history, and gave his country her first English version of the fun and fire of Aristotle. There was still another, the Oxford scholar of a later age, of whom the chronicle records that he was a prodigy in the common law, a person of excellent parts, honest in dealing, and of good and generous nature. There was one more, loftier far than these, whose mighty pulses beat for liberty and justice, the brave Utopian of Sidney's time, who aimed to lay the deep foundations of the perfect and immortal state-James Harrington, the author of Oceana. "Harrington now loved Bacon with tenfold ardor, and Harrington's love for Bacon was something wonderful. It was absolutely a personal attachment, and there was no surer way to rouse him than to speak disparagingly of Verulam. He put him above all authors or men. He spoke of him as the flower of the human race. He resented any imputation on his fame, scouted at the modern aspersions upon him of Lord Campbell, Macaulay, and others, as baseless and infamous slanders, and altered Pope's epigrammatic line, which he thought the seed-cone of the whole modern libel, to read the wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind.' With a standing promise to his friends to put the evidence together some day in demonstrable form, having already, he said, begun to make notes to that end, he meanwhile rested in the broad assertion that Bacon's downfall was the work of the conservatism of his time-that the conservators of social abuses had smelt out his conccaled democracy and socialism, trumped up the charge of malfeasance in office against him, ruined and defamed him in his life, and flung the mire of a traditionary calumny on his tomb."-pp. 177, 178, 179. Not satisfied with doing what he can in the body of the work to rob Shakespeare of the authorship of the immortal productions which are inseparably associated with his name, he writes an elaborate note at the end, in which he uses such language as the following: "Another acknowledgment remains to be made. The reader of the twelfth chapter of this book may already have observed that Harrington, if he had lived, would have been a believer in the theory regarding the origin and purpose of the Shakespeare Drama, as developed in the admirable work by Miss Delia Bacon, entitled "The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays Unfolded," in which belief I should certainly agree with Harrington. I wish it were in my power to do even the smallest justice to that mighty and eloquent volume, whose masterly comprehension and insight, though they could not save it from being trampled upon by the brutal bison of the British literary press, yet lift it to the dignity, whatever may be its faults, of being the best work ever composed upon the Baconian or Shakesporian writings. It has been scouted by the critics as the product of a distempered ideality. Perhaps it is. But there is a prudent wisdom, says Goethe, and there is a wisdom which does not remind us of prudence; and, in like manner, I may say that there is a sane sense, and there is a senso that does not remind us of sanity. At all events, I am assured that the candid and ingenious reader that Miss Bacon wished for, will find it more to his profit to be insane with her on the subjec of Shakespeare, than sane with Dr. Johnson. "I am aware, that in even making this acknowledgment, I do something to excite the rancor of the stupid and senseless prejudice which finds no difficulty in assigning the noblest works of the human genius to the fat peasant of Strafford."-pp. 557, 558. Let nobody say "the great Shakespeare," in future, but take the hint from Mr. William O'Connor, of Philadelphia, and call him "the fat peasant of Strafford." And it is equally erroneous to say the great Johnson-it should in future be the great Miss Delia Bacon! But if it pleases the author of Harrington" to pass judgment after this fashion on Shakespeare, and do several other rather silly things, for reasons best known to himself, what of it? He makes amends for all save his slanders on the illustrious dead, by such vivid sketches as that of the death of Harrington, with a portion of which we close our remarks on one of the most singular compounds of nonsense and wisdom, wit and stupidity, intelligence and vulgarity, in book form, which, as already remarked, has long fallen into our hands: "It was a day of grief to all but Muriel. The servants moved about the house with eyes red with weeping. Patrick seemed ten years older with his forlorn sorrow. Hannah and the children came to the house, and remained for a couple of hours, crying bitterly. Gracious, and calm, and sweet, amidst the mortal anguish, Muriel soothed and strengthened and consoled them all. "The next day was the day of the funeral. The library where the body lay was decked as on the day of the wedding, with a profusion of roses. All the windows were open, and the rich, dark room swam in clear radiance. "In the morning, Mrs. Eastman, Emily, Wentworth, and Captain Fisher, being present, Muricl produced a brief will which Harrington had made the day after his marriage. The few engravings which decorated his room, and a portion of his books, he had bequeathed to Emily and Wentworth. The bulk of his library was given to Muriel. His house to Captain Fisher, with the provision that the two rooms in which he had lived should be kept for the refuge of any fugitive, exile, houseless or outcast person of any description who might stand in need of succor. little income he had also given in charge to the captain, to be expended for the relief of any human distresses that might fall within his knowledge, or to be used at his discretion for any charitable end. His "The old man bent his head, silently weeping, and the rest sat muto and still, thinking with swelling hearts of the kind spirit that had left earth forever. "A little while, and they were gone from the room-all save Muriel and Wentworth. The latter stood bending over the coffin, and looking mournfully on the beautiful dead face of his friend, and Mariel sat at the organ dreaming in music, which brooded in sweet and glorious surges on the sunlit air. "As the melody died away, Wentworth stole slowly to her side. "I forgot to ask you,' he murmured, 'about the burial service. Have you sent for a clergyman?' 666 'No, Richard,' she replied. 'He needs none. Our thoughts and memories are the fittest burial rites for him. He was a type and harbinger of the day when religion shall be the tender love and reverence of every soul for all. In the vision of that day let us lay his dead form in the grave, hallowed by our remembrance.'"-pp. 550, 551. Home Ballads and Poems, by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 16 mo. pp. 206. The contents of this slender volume are of very unequal merit. Indeed, they differ as much in almost every essential characteristic, some below, some above mediocrity, as they are, as if they had emanated from at least a half dozen persons; while a third class make as near an approach to perfection as any similar effusions by a living poet, whether European or American. To our minds, for example, there is not much poetry in "Telling the Bees;" we are aware that it has been praised not a little; and there are those of our own acquaintance whose taste is rarely at fault, with whom it is even a favorite A It may be owing to our want of perception, but we really can see nothing above ordinary rhyme, without much reason, in stanzas like the following:"Before them, under the garden wall, Forward and back, Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, Draping each hive with a shred of black."-p. 47. The greater Nor is "The Swan Song of Parson Avery" much better. part of it is a hoarse, monotonous sort of whining rather than singing. But here we must cease to find fault. There is no other poem or ballad in the book which does not possess merit of a high order. Some we have read this day for the first time, but shall often read again. The plaintive sweetness and chaste melody of "The Old Burying Ground" possess, for us, a veritable fascination. A few stanzas will give those of our readers who may not yet have seen it, an idea whether we are right or wrong in our preference : "OUR vales are sweet with fern and rose, Our hills are maple-crowned; But not from them our fathers chose The village burying-ground. "The dreariest spot in all the land To Death they set apart; With scanty grace from Nature's hand, "A winding wall of mossy stone, Frost-flung and broken, lines With grass and wandering vines. "Without the wall a birch-tree shows "There, sheep that graze the neighboring plain The farm-horse drags his fetlock chain, The cow-bell tinkles slow. "Low moans the river from its bed, The distant-pines reply; Like mourners shrinking from the dead, "Unshaded smites the summer sun, Unchecked the winter blast; The school-girl learns the place to shun, "For thus our fathers testified That he might read who ran The emptiness of human pride, The nothingness of man."-pp. 115, 116. Among the many fine poems inspired by the incidents of modern warfare, there is scarcely a happier or more touching lyric of its kind, or one that contains more genuine poetry than that entitled, "The Pipes of Lucknow." Sel dom, if ever, have the Scotch had a finer tribute paid to their undoubted But the best poem of all is "The Sycamores." Parnell's Hermit, or Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina, scarcely lays a stronger hold on the affections, or inspires a more pleasing melancholy. To give an extract from it is nearly the same as to tear its leaves from the rose; but we can do no better. As the few stanzas which we subjoin, occupy all the space now at our disposal, we can VOL. II. NO. III. 11 only add our hearty wish that "the Quaker poet" may live long to give us many such charming ballads : The Songs of Ireland; containing Songs of the Affections, Convivial, Comic, Moral, Sentimental, Satirical, Patriotic, Historical, Military, Political, and Miscellaneous Songs. Edited and annotated by SAMUEL LOVER, author of "Handy Andy," "Rory O'More," &c., &c. Profusely illustrated with Engravings, designed by Phiz and Harrison Weir, and engraved by Dalziel. 12mo, pp. 360. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald. 1860, Little need be added to the title-page, which we have copied in full, with the exception that the book is not "profusely illustrated," as we understand these words. It can hardly be said to exaggerate the multifarious variety of |