now actuates the profession in every part of the world, and the laborious and benevolent efforts in which they are constantly engaged, without feeling for them a deep respect as a body of scientific men, and a sure reliance, that to their unwearied efforts in the cause will be finally awarded all that success in discovering the most successful methods of treating disease, which the nature of man renders possible. J. W. CRITICAL NOTICES. Trans Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic. lated, with Notes. By J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. A new Edition, revised. With an Introductory Essay on the Origin, Antiquity, Character, and Influence of the Ancient Ballads of Spain and an Analytical Account, with Specimens, of the Romance of the Cid. New York: Wiley & Putnam. 1842. THIS is the first American edition of a work, originally published many years since in England, and is reprinted from the second English edition, which is one of the most sumptuous specimens of book-making, which has ever proceeded from the London press. The American publisher, without attempting to reproduce the splendor of his prototype, has given us a volume which deserves emphatic commendation for its neatness, good taste, and every way respectable appearance. The literary merit of the work, we need hardly say to our readers, is of a very high order. It forms one of those rare cases, in which the original productions have gained, rather than lost, by being transmuted into a foreign tongue. Mr. Hallam, in his excellent work on the literature of Europe, remarks that the "Spanish ballads are known to our public, but generally with inconceivable advantage, by the very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lockhart." How far Mr. Lockhart has departed from the proper function of a translator, and assumed that of an imitator and paraphraser, how many of his versions are, strictly speaking, centoes, made up of two or three fragments with the chasms filled up by his own inventive genius, we are not sufficiently acquainted with the originals to be able to pronounce. From those better instructed than ourselves we learn, that he is justly obnoxious to some of these charges, which will be judged with more or less of severity, as the critic has more the love of the antiquary than the taste of a scholar. Judging of them merely as poems, we profess our obligations to him for a volume of spirited and admirable poetry, rare in its kind and excellent in its quality. His own additions and embellishments, if any there be, are like Michael Angelo's restorations of the mutilated statues of antiquity, not to be distinguished from the original body. He does not deface the simplicity of the native ballad by the tawdry and affected phraseology of modern courts and drawingrooms. The ballads are fifty-three in number, embracing a considerable variety of character and subject, though mostly, as was to be expected, on themes of love and war. It is either the blast of the hero's trumpet, or the sound of the lover's lute that breathes through them. Many of them, and some of the best, are founded upon the life and fortunes of the Cid. The reader will trace some resemblances, but many points of contrast, between the ballads and those of England; and it would be an interesting subject to trace these effects to their sources in the difference in religion, political insti tutions, and climate between the two countries. The Southern muse is more impassioned, more melancholy, more dreamy, with greater depth of feeling and stronger religious sensibility; the Northern, more joyous, more frolicsome, with more of animal spirits and rough vigor. Where every poem is a gem it is hard to make selections; but we have been particularly pleased with the grace and spirit of "The Cid's Wedding," the picturesque vigor of "The Bull-fight of Gazul," the simplicity and truth of feeling of" Zara's Ear-ring," the descriptive richness and touching close of "The Bridal of Andalla," the plaintive beauty of "The Lamentations for Celin," and the overpowering pathos of "Count Alarcos and the Infanta Solisa." The American edition, besides the contents of the English, contains an essay on the origin, character, antiquity, and influence of the ancient ballads of Spain, from the 14th No. of the Edinburgh Review, written apparently by one entirely master of the subject; an analytical account of the Romance of the Cid, with translated specimens from the Penny Magazine, and a Bibliographical list, prepared for this edition, of the books containing the original ballads, and of works pertaining to the subject. The Cambridge Miscellany of Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. Edited by BENJAMIN PEIRCE, A. M. No. I. James Munroe & Co. IT is a source of general satisfaction, that a magazine of this character has been started in Cambridge. There is, per3D S. VOL. XIV. NO. II. VOL. XXXII. 35 haps, no better sign of life, in any department of science, or letters, than the publishing of a good journal. But the sign cannot be given, if the public will not come generously forward with a hearty response. Prof. Peirce says, "The observer, who withdraws from all society, in order to devote his nights to watching the stars, is enervated by his loss of sleep, and unfitted for the labors of the day. He cannot live two lives; and if he works while others sleep, he must sleep while others work. While he sustains science, science must sustain him." This is equally true in other directions. If the learned gentlemen at Cambridge are ready to undertake the labor involved in a publication like this, the labor is their full share of the business, the rest belongs to the public; and if they desire, and even require, if we may take the language of some of our newspapers as good authority, some such evidence of actual existence and industry from the Mathematical and Astronomical department, they must be ready with their subscriptions, and relieve the conductors of the journal, at least, of all anxiety on the score of expense. Instead of the seventy or eighty subscribers obtained after a six months' appeal, Boston alone (whether it read the book or not) for the sake of science should send in, at the fewest, five hundred names. But the book will be read. A certain proportion of each number will probably be beyond the acquirements of all but a very few of the subscribers; but if future numbers shall be formed upon the model of the present, a fair proportion will also be generally interesting and instructive. The first half of the present Number is devoted to solutions of mathematical questions, and is of course Cimmerian darkness to nearly all who may chance to open the book; but the remaining half is, for the most part, within the grasp of any intelligent reader. The article on the distances of the fixed stars communicates astonishing results of observations made at European observatories. In an early Number of the Quarterly Review it was stated, that by the observations of Dr. Brinkley upon a particular star, the a Lyræ, its parallax had been found, and its distance consequently ascertained, which was given as twenty billions of miles. By Dr. Herschel the diameter of the same star was calculated, with no doubt some near approach to accuracy, at least we should say so, were not the result almost beyond belief, and found to be three thousand times greater than that of the sun! A body, that is, which would spread out its solid mass to almost three-fourths the size of our solar system; and of the vastness of that extent a homely illustration of Ferguson conveys a lively idea, when he says, that a cannon ball, taking - its speed at the rate of nearly five hundred miles an hour, would be two centuries in travelling from the Sun to Saturn. Yet what is this, after all, to the single fact stated by the elder Herschel, that in a single field of his telescope he has counted eighty thousand stars, or, compared with what now appears to be an established part of sidereal astronomy, that our solar system, with all the visible heavens, constitutes but a single nebula, or group of worlds, bearing somewhat the proportion to what the largest telescopes reveal of the universe, that our solar system does to the rest of our nebula. The star a Lyræ, mentioned above, has been since measured, Prof. Peirce says, by Struve, and found to correspond to a distance of 771,400 times the distance of the earth from the sun, which last distance is ninety-five millions of miles. This, he remarks, is the greatest distance that has ever been measured, and light would not travel it (going with the velocity of 192,500 miles in a second) in less than 12 years. Bessel, he tells us, has measured the distance of another star; and "from a series of observations, unparalleled in their accuracy, and in the success with which all instrumental errors have been eliminated, has determined the parallax of 61 Cygni to be 03482, corresponding to a distance of 592,200 times the earth's mean distance from the sun; and this distance would be travelled by light in about 9 years." The other articles are on "American Astronomical and Magnetic Observers," "On Meteors," "On Varieties of Climate," "On the Barometer," by the Editor; "On the Internal Equilibrium and Motion of Bodies," an elaborate paper by Professor Lovering; and "On the Southern Continent," an article by Lieut. Davis, of the Navy. 3 A Course of Lectures on the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem Church, as Revealed in the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg; delivered in the City of New York during the Winter of 1840-41. By B. F. BARRETT, Pastor of the First Society of the New Jerusalem Church in New York. N. York: 1842. THIS volume, we dare say, will prove a very useful work to those who either already receive, or are desirous to make an attempt upon the doctrines of Swedenborg. In his preface Mr. Barrett gives fair warning, that he shall use no delicacy in dealing with the opinions of those who differ from him, and cannot see their way clear to admit the claims of the divine Baron. He keeps his word; and we can by no means approve of his theological manners. Nor do we believe he would approve of ours, much as he likes and commends plain speaking, were we to make him our model in this respect. He would not take it well, we are sure, were we to charge him, for instance, with writing nonsense, and blasphemy, nonsense, because we cannot understand what he writes, and blasphemy, because he attributes to a man divine power, upon the most frivolous occasions; and we intend to do neither the one nor the other. Yet he scruples not to ejaculate "Horrid Blasphemy!!" when speaking of the opinions of a living eminent writer concerning inspiration, a writer not more remarkable for his power to illustrate Christianity by his genius, than for the power of Christianity over his own life; and with whom the charge agrees as well as with Pascal, or Priestley. He should know better than to apply such language to any sincere utterance of theological opinion. As various as the mind is, will creeds be; and nowhere can there be blasphemy, nor can it be charged, where there is an honest purpose. - Too many pages of the Examiner have already been devoted to the doctrine and the character of Swedenborg, to allow of any prolonged notice of the present volume. Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets. Designed principally for the use of Young Persons at School and College. By HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, M. A. Part I. Containing, I. General Introduction. II. Homer. Boston: James Munroe and Company. 1842. It is to be deeply regretted that Mr. Coleridge has been prevented from completing his plan. An introduction to the other branches of Greek Literature, particularly the drama, written with the elegance and scholarly spirit shown in this little work, would be an invaluable addition to the critical literature of the English language. Mr. Munroe deserves the thanks of the literary community, for republishing, in so neat a form, this most excellent little book. Some years since, it was printed in Philadelphia, but so printed as to discredit the character of the press of that city. Besides the general deformity of the volume, the correctness of the text was utterly disregarded. Many gross blunders were left uncorrected in the English; but the Greek quotations from Homer were so disguised, that the critical acumen of a Böckh, the great reader and expounder of all illegible and unintelligi |