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of the Princess Sophia Dorothea, and the circumstances that led to his assassination, are in the author's happiest vein. The sketch commences thus characteristically :

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,The founder of the race was Hans Christof, a famous warrior and plunderer of the Thirty Years' War. One of Hans's sons, Otto, appeared as ambassador at the court of Louis XIV., and had to make a Swedish speech at his reception before the most Christian king. Otto was a famous dandy and warrior, but he forgot the speech, and what do you think he did? Far from being disconcerted, he recited a portion of the Swedish catechism to his most Christian majesty and his court, not one of whom understood his lingo, with the exception of his own suite, who had to keep their gravity as best they might." p. 41.

After some preliminary remarks explanatory of the position of England in having to go to Hanover to seek a ruler, the first of the Georges is introduced to us as follows:

"When the crown did come to George Louis, he was in no hurry about putting it on. He waited at home for a while; took an affecting farewell of his dear Hanover and Herrenhausen, and set out in the most leisurely manner to ascend the throne of his ancestors,' as he called it in his first speech to Parliament. He brought with him a compact body of Germans, whose society he loved, and whom he kept round the royal person. He had his faithful German chamberlains; his German secretaries; his negroes, captives of his bow and spear, in Turkish wars; his two ugly. elderly German favorites, Mesdames of Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, whom he created respectively Countess of Darlington and Duchess of Kendal. The duchess was tall and lean of stature, and hence was irreverently nicknamed the Maypole. The countess was a large-sized noblewoman, and this elevated personage was denominated the elephant. Both of these ladies loved Hanover and its delights; clung round the linden-trees of the great Herrenhausen avenue, and at first would not quit the place. Schulenberg, in fact, could not come on account of her debts; but, finding the Maypole would not come, the elephant packed up her trunk and slipped out of Hanover, unwieldy as she was. On this the Maypole straightway put herself in motion, and followed her beloved George Louis. One seems to be speaking of Captain Macheath, and Polly, and Lucy. The king we had selected; the courtiers who came in his train; the English nobles who came to welcome him, and on many of whom the shrewd old cynic turned hs back-I protest it is a wonderful satirical picture! I am a citizen waiting at Greenwich pier, say, and crying hurrah for King George, and yet I can scarcely keep my countenance and help laughing at the enormous absurdity of this event!

"Here we are, all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterbury prostrating himself to the head of his church, with Kielmansegge and Schulenberg, with their ruddled cheeks grinning behind the defender of the faith. Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough kneeling too, the greatest warrior of all times; he who betrayed King William-betrayed King James II.-betrayed Queen Anne-betrayed England to the French, the elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the elector; and here are my Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, the latter of whom has just tripped up the heels of the former, and, if a month's more time had been allowed him, would have had King James at Westminster. The great Whig gentlemen made their bows and conges with proper decorum and ceremony; but yonder keen old schemer knows the value of their loyalty. 'Loyalty,' he must think, 'as applied to me-it is absurd! There are fifty nearer heirs to the throne than I am. I am but an accident, and you fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, not for mine. You Tories hate me; you archbishop, smirking on your knees, and prating about heaven, you know I don't care a fig for your Thirty-nine Articles, and can't understand a word of your stupid sermons. You, my Lords Bolingbroke and Oxford-you know you were conspiring against me a month ago; and you, my Lord Duke of Marlborough-you would sell me, or any man else, if you found your advantage in it. Come, my good Melusina, come, my honest Sophia, let us go into my private room, and have some oysters and some Rhine wine, and some pipes afterward; let us make the best of our situation; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling, brawling lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat in their own way !'" pp. 51–54.

Nor does our author find George II. more of an Englishman than George I., On the death of the latter, Walpole was the messenger deputed to inform the

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next heir, in the usual way, that the throne was vacant. With information so important, the minister and courtier made no ceremony of entering the chamber where "the hope of England" was in bed, if not asleep :—

"He on the bed started up, and with many oaths, and a strong German accent, asked who was there, and who dared to disturb him?

""I am Sir Robert Walpole,' said the messenger. The awakened sleeper hated Sir Robert Walpole. I have the honor to announce to your majesty that your royal father, King George I., died at Qsnaburg, on Saturday last, the 10th instant.'

"Dat is one big lie! roared out his sacred majesty, King George II.; but Sir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from that day until three-and-thirty years after, George, the second of the name, ruled over England.

"How the king made away with his father's will under the astonished nose of the Archbishop of Canterbury; how he was a choleric little sovereign; how he shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked his coat and wig about in his rages, and called everybody thief, liar, rascal, with whom he differed, you will read in all the history books; and how he speedily and shrewdly reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom he had hated during his father's life, and by whom he was served during fifteen years of his own, with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success."-pp. 72-75.

What Mr. Thackeray tells us about George III. is not very interesting, because every body knows that he was not the great sovereign or good man our author would have us believe he was. But fortunately we are not left beholding to the estimate given of the king, who, if he had no element of greatness in himself, had those among his subjects who are never to be forgotten. This distinction the author himself does not forget to make. Referring to the literary magnates he says:

"How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them! how contemptible the story of the George III. court squabbles are beside the recorded talk of dear old Johnson! What is the grandest entertainment at Windsor compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, with Percy, and Langton, and Goldsmith, and poor Bozzy at the table? I declare I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those dear old friends of the past. Their minds were not debauched by excess, or effeminato with luxury. They toiled their noble day's labor; they rested, and took their kindly pleasure; they cheered their holiday meetings with generous wit and hearty interchange of thought; they were no prudes, but no blush need follow their conversation; they were merry, but no riot came out of their cups. Ah! I would have liked a night at the Turk's Head even though bad news had arrived from the colonies, and Doctor Johnson was growling against the rebels; to have sat with him and Goldy, and to have heard Burke, the finest talker in the world; and to have had Garrick flashing in with a story from his theatre-I like, I say, to think of that society; and not merely how pleasant and how wise, but how good they were. I think it was on going home one night from the club that Edmund Burke-his noble soul full of great thoughts, be sure, for they never left him; his heart full of gentleness-was accosted by a poor wandering woman, to whom he spoke words of kindness; and, moved by the tears of this Magdalen-perhaps having caused them by the good words he spoke to her-he took her home to the house of his wife and children, and never left her until he had found the means of restoring her to honesty and labor."-pp. 138-140.

One more extract and we are done. It is from that part of the sketch of George IV. which has reference to the unfortunate Queen Caroline. Passing over the account of Lord Malmesbury's mission to Brunswick to conduct the princess to England, and some incidental circumstances by no means without interest, we come to the serious part of her history, in which, if Mr. Thackeray errs, it is on the side of humanity :

"What a history follows! Arrived in London, the bridegroom hastened eagerly to receive his
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bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesbury says she very properly attempted to kneel. "He raised her gracefully enough, embraced her, and, turning round to me, said: "Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.'

"I said, 'Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?'

"Upon which, much out of humor, he said, with an oath: 'No; I will go to the Queen.' "What could be expected from a wedding which had such a beginning-from such a bridegroom and such a bride? I am not going to carry you through the scandal of that story, or follow the poor princess through all her vagaries; her balls and her dances, her travels to Jerusalem and Naples, her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears. As I read her trial in history, I vote she is not guilty. I don't say it is an impartial verdict; but as one reads her story, the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous, outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door who wickedly thrust her from it. Spite of her follies, the great, hearty people of England loved, and protected, and pitied her. God bless you! we will bring your husband back to you,' said a mechanic, one day, as she told Lady Charlotte Bury, with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly, enduring love, had it not survived remorse-was it not accustomed to desertion?

"Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage story; how the prince reeled into chapel to be married; how he hiccoughed out his vows of fidelity-you know how he kept them; how he pursued the woman whom he had married; to what a state he brought her; with what blows he struck her; with what malignity he pursued her; what his treatment of his daughter, and what his own life. He the first gentleman of Europe! There is no stronger satire on the proud English society of that day than that they admired George."-pp. 223–227.

In short, a more sparkling, entertaining work of its kind and size has not appeared in the English language since the publication of Walpole's letters. It exhibits, in bold relief, all the characteristics of the author's genius; if, indeed, the faculty of making us feel amused at the weaknesses and follies of our neighbors, be worthy of so noble a name-the noblest we can bestow on the powers to which we owe the "Iliad," the "Aeneid," ," "Paradise Lost," "Hamlet," and the "Divina Comedia." No doubt if one-tenth of those who are said to possess genius in our time, merely because they write a novel or a . poem, that happens to have a large sale, then Thackeray must be acknowledged to possess a high order of it; but the if makes a great difference. All the works of our satirist lack unity and finish-scarcely any of them have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Those regarded as his most successful portraitures are but fragments. Nor do the Lectures in the present volume form an exception. Not one of the Four Georges is whole, or anything better than an unfinished caricature. A sneer here, a scoff there, then a scrap of buffoonery, followed by a sort of prose elegy, or hymn of praise, where praise is least deserved, are not the materials for a true portrait. This was not the way Fielding, Richardson, Goldsmith, Smollett, Sterne, and Scott drew their pictures, or any of them; nor is it the way Dickens draws his; otherwise we should not remember so many of the men and women of each. If Macaulay makes a hero of William III. it is not by laughing at him in one page, and whining in sympathy with him in the next, he does so. Such as he conceives him to be, he exhibits him to us on the canvass, so that we can observe or criticise every trait of his character; nay, almost every feature of his countenance; while in the hands of Mr. Thackeray, there is not one of the Georges who can be said to be anybody. At the same time, as already observed, all will read what Mr. Thackeray writes, and none will read it without profit.

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Handbook of Universal Literature, from the Best and Latest Authorities; Designed for Popular Reading, and as a Text Book for Schools and Colleges. By ANNA C. LYNCH BOTTA. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1860.

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Although the best female authors disclaim any immunity at the hands of the critic, on account of their sex, we should much rather commend Madame Botta's book than say one word against it, could we only do the former conscientiously. That the lady is well educated, and that her reading has been extensive, we are very willing to believe. But these are very different things from writing, or even compiling, a work on universal literature, fit to be used as a Text Book for Schools and Colleges." That before us is, indeed, not suitable for such a purpose; nor is it aught more so for "popular reading," for the simple reason that it is better to tell the people nothing about universal literature, or any particular literature, than to tell them what is not correct. And the latter is what is done in the present case; though, no doubt, the reverse is what is intended. In sooth we might have expected as much from the title page, where we are naively informed that the light about to be shed upon us from every corner of the earth, is "from the best and latest authorities," as if best and latest were synonymous. We naturally look to the list of these great authorities; and, sure enough, we do find those among them that are late-indeed, too late-somewhat in the sense of the boy that went to school when others were about coming home, just because he slept too long, and his mamma did not want him to get hard lessons, lest they might make him go wrong in the head.

The "Handbook of Universal Literature" bears the traces of at least three hands besides that which uses the scissors so extensively. We must not, therefore, speak of the style of the book, but of the styles, and verily some of them are unique in their way. It is the criticisms, however, that are most amusing. The Pythian goddess at Delphi was not more authoritative in her palmiest days than are the oracles of the "Handbook," especially when enlightening us on the characteristics and relative merits of languages. But let us assume that we only hear one voice; and then see what it tells us. Passing over preliminary remarks, most of which we are pleased to recognize as school-boy acquaintances, we come to those passages which are evidently new, if not original. Thus, for example, we are told that, "The Sanscrit, meaning perfected, is founded on a vast, logical system of grammar, whose equal cannot be found in any other language." (p. 24). That is, the Hindoos made the grammar first, and then the language to suit it! In the second or third sentence after, we have the additional information that, though inferior in variety and richness to the Greek and some other languages of the Indo-European family, it unites many qualities which belong separately to them, and the study of it is important in a historical and philological point of view." (p. 25). De grâce, madame, je vous prie de me laisser rire ! In turning to the Greek, we learn that that is a "strong" language, and that “it must have attained great excellence at a very early period, for it existed in its essential perfection in the time of Homer," (p. 68)—just the same as the English existed in its essential perfection in the time of Chaucer. Of Latin we are told that it "had not the plastic property of the Greek, the faculty of transforming itself into every variety of form," &c.;

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(p. 127) although no language in the world is freer in its construction or admits of a larger variety of transformations, without in the least altering the sense, than that of Cicero and Virgil.

But let us pass to another form of criticism. We turn over a few scores of pages at random, a dozen at a time, and come to Arabian poetry. There we are told that "the Arabians possess many heroic poems, composed for the purpose of celebrating the praises of distinguished men," &c. In the very next sentence it is stated that their poetry is entirely lyrical and didactic." (p. 199.) Taking another stride, we reach French literature, where we are informed that Jean Jacques Rousseau "believed in a Supreme Being, a future state, and the excellence of virtue," &c. (p. 292.) "Under these circumstances he wrote his "Confessions," which he believed would prove his vindication before the world. The reader who may expect to find this book abounding with at least as much virtue as a man may possess without Christian principle, will find in it not a single feature of greatness;, it is a proclamation of disagreeable faults," (his shameful amours), &c. This will be very valuable and very grammatical information for schools and colleges! That very moral and graceful writer, Paul de Kock, is compared to Dickens, though it is admitted that while "free from the extravagances of the school already described, this author is not very scrupulous in relation to delicacy of expression, and greatly deficient in purity of sentiment," that is, is not greatly deficient, &c. But, moral or immoral, all writers have more or less grave faults, except our own-at least those of our own who are still in the flesh, and may be supposed to be "appreciative" in turn, when an opportunity offers. There are many of our neighbors thus lauded to the skies, whom, we confess, we had never heard of before. English, French, German and Italian authors are all very well in their way; but there is always something to prevent them from attaining that perfection which is possessed by hundreds of American authors, especially by those who are so fortunate as to include the author of "Universal Literature" in their list of friends. In short, there is hardly one who has written a Fourth of July oration, with or without rhyme or reason, who is not immortalized in the work before us. The praise, even when bestowed on those who are fairly entitled to it, is often amusing in its confusion. For example, we are told that Fitz-Greene Halleck has a “playful felicity of jest." (p. 539.) Richard H. Dana's verse "is sometimes abrupt, but never feeble," &c. ib. Of Longfellow's poems, it is said, in very questionable grammar, that they are pervaded with an earnestness and beauty of sentiment, expressed in a finished, artistic form, which at once wins the ear and impresses the memory and heart.” ib. It must be a pretty form, truly, which "at once wins the ear," &c. In a somewhat similar manner we are informed that "the poems of Mrs. Hemans breathe a singularly attractive tone of romantic and melancholy sweetness," &c. (p. 517). Moore is passable enough as a song writer, "but oftener ingenious than poetical. His Eastern romances, in 'Lalla Rookh,' with all their occasional felicities, are not powerful poetical narratives. He was no where so successful as in his satirical effusions of comic rhyme," &c. (!) ib. The best of the British historians have faults, from which ours are entirely free. "The style of Robertson and Gibbon" (one style, it seems, does both) "is totally unlike that of Hume." (How remarkable !) "They want his seemingly unconscious case," &c. (p. 508).

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