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LITERARY NOTICES.

A VOYAGE UP THE RIVER AMAZON, including a Residence at Para. By WILLIAM H. Edwards. In one volume. pp. 256. New-York: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

THIS work, we cannot help thinking, must have been suggested by the foretaste of a volume, descriptive of many kindred scenes embraced in this, (and adverted to as from a forth-coming publication, under a title almost precisely similar to the one which heads this notice,) which appeared in three successive numbers of this Magazine, a few months since. The volume from which those extracts were made, and which were widely copied throughout the Union, has been carefully prepared for the press, and has received the commendations of those whose critical judgments are as unquestioned as their literary reputations are exalted. We hope before long to announce its publication; and in the meantime, we invite attention to the little work before us, being well assured that its records of adventure will increase the public anxiety to hear more of a region so untravelled, through the medium of a more elaborate and complete work, from the faithful pen of one whose avocations while in that country, and longer sojourn there, gave him superior advantages in the acquisition of entertaining matériel. It is not a matter of surprise to our author alone, that those who live upon the excitement of seeing and telling some new thing, have so seldom betaken themselves to our southern continent. Promising indeed to lovers of the marvellous is that land, where the highest of earth's mountains seek her brightest skies, as though their tall peaks sought a nearer acquaintance with the most glorious of stars; where the mightiest of rivers roll majestically through primeval forests of boundless extent, concealing, yet bringing forth the most beautiful and varied forms of animal and vegetable existence; where Peruvian gold has tempted, and Amazonian women have repulsed, the unprincipled adventurer; and where Jesuit missionaries, and luckless traders, have fallen victims to cannibal Indians, and epicurean anacondas. With a curiosity excited by such wonders, and heightened by the graphic illustrations in school geographies, where men riding rebellious alligators form a fore-ground to tigers bounding over tall canes, and huge snakes embrace whole boats' crews in their ample folds; the writer of the volume under notice visited Northern Brazil, and ascended the Amazon to a higher point, he believes, than any American had ever before gone. As an amusement, and by way of compensation to himself for the absence of some of the monsters which did not meet his curious eye, he collected as many specimens in different departments of Natural History as were in his power, at the same time chronicling the result of his observations. As a lover of Nature, he claims to have sought her in some of her most secret hiding-places, and from these comparatively unexplored retreats to have brought the little which she deigned to reveal to him.'

THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. By Mr. MICHAEL ANGELO TITMARSH, author of The Yellowplush Correspondence.' In one volume. pp. 160. BERFORD AND COMPANY, Astor House.

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We can always promise to any one who opens a volume of THACKERAY's, abûndant food for entertainment. He overflows with whimsical humor; his wit is sometimes inimitable; he sees with a true eye, and depicts with the faithful pencil of a painter; his is a natural, easy, and graceful style; without any trick to excite attention, but only a jotting down of thoughts, fanciful, sad or funny, as they shall comen into his minde.' Parts of Yellowplush' are so dramatic and exciting, that laugh as we may at the ridiculous orthography of CHAWLS,' we cannot avoid being wonderfully interested by the movement of the story. The Journey from Cornhill to Cairo,' as we have heretofore shown, is replete with graphic descriptions; and the reader who can follow our author in his eventful narrative of a journey through the highways and by-ways of the Green Isle, without being interested, and occasionally laughing consumedly,' has not so much in common with us as we could fain wish he had, for his own sake. We have space but for one scene, where a stockingless Irish girl, PEG of Limavaddy,' evoked the aid of his Muse. He has been riding from Coleraine to Derry, shivering sad, and weary of soul :'

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Up and down the stair

Two more young ones patter,
(Twins were never seen
Dirtier nor fatter ;)
Both have mottled legs,

Both have snubby noses,
Both have-Here the host

Kindly interposes:
'Sure you must be froze

With the sleet and hail, Sir,
So will you have some punch,
Or will you have some ale,
[Sir?'

Presently a maid
Enters with the liquor,

(Half a pint of ale

Frothing in a beaker)
Gods! I didn't know

What my beating heart meant,
HEBE's self I thought

Entered the apartment.
As she came she smiled,

And the smile bewitching,
On my word and honor

Lighted all the kitchen!

With a curtsey neat

Greeting the new comer,
Lovely, smiling Peg

Offers me the rummer;
But my trembling hand
Up the beaker tilted,

Of that dire disaster,
Out began to laugh

Missis, maid, and master.

Such a merry peal

'Specially Miss PEG's was, (As the glass of ale

Trickling down my legs was,)
That the joyful sound

Of that ringing laughter
Echoed in my ears

Many a long day after.

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It should perhaps be explained, that there is an illustration in the book (and a great many other good ones besides, from the hand of the author,) of the fair' PEG of Limavaddy.' Mr. TITMARSH draws equally well with pencil and pen.

SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS: WITH HIS LIFE. Illustrated with many hundred Wood-cuts; executed by H. W. HEWET, after designs by KENNY, MEADOWS, HARVEY, and others. Edited by GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, LI.. D. With critical Introductions, Notes, etc., Original and Selected. In three volumes. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

WE promised in our last number to present a more elaborate notice of this truly noble work than we were then enabled to do, and we now proceed to the fulfilment of our pledge. The last number of the London Quarterly Review observes: After all the assistance that SHAKSPEARE had derived from his commentators, it was yet undeniable that much remained to be done and to be undone. An edition was wanted which, preserving what was good in the old editors, and rejecting what was worthless, should reflect the knowledge and feeling of the present day. Mr. KNIGHT and Mr. COLLIER have contended for the honor of supplying the deficiency, and have still, it must be confessed, left the field open for a third competitor. The labors of both these gentlemen are useful and commendable; but it is not likely nor desirable that either one editor or the other should long remain a standard editor of SHAKSPEARE. It may be justly claimed for the studiously collated and admirably prepared edition before us, that it satisfactorily supplies the desideratum hinted at by the Quarterly Review. The first and greatest labor of the Shaksperian editor, as Mr. VerPLANCK Well observes, arises from the various readings of the poet's text, and the alterations, conjectures and controversies of critics concerning them; differences which spring from a variety of editions, obvious errors of the press, the tastes of different editors, or rather of the age in which they lived, etc. The text of the present edition, carefully and accurately printed, is copied from the late edition of COLLIER, minutely perused, and given with only such variations as a full examination of the evidence as to the right reading suggested. In choosing among the varying readings, the editor has departed as little as possible from the older text; so that many of the alterations introduced by STEVENS and MALONE have been rejected, with as little hesitation as many of them had been previously omitted by KNIGHT and COLLIER. The alterations, however, which were unquestionably made by SHAKSPEARE himself, in the revision and enlargement of several of his plays, have been carefully retained. These, when matters of interest or curiosity, are detailed in notes, with a brief summary of the reasons adduced in support of them.

The notes of exposition and interpretation in the edition under notice give the substance of all the annotations, valuable either for the elucidation of obscurely-expressed thoughts, of obsolete words and phrases, or of antiquated allusions. The editor has incorporated with the mere verbal and antiquarian commentary the sub

stance of much of that higher English and German Shaksperian criticism, in which this century has been so prolific; to which he has added many valuable original critical observations and suggestions. As an appropriate accompaniment to an edition enriched with numerous pictorial decorations and antiquarian illustrations of art, many of the more curious notices of costume, arms, architecture, etc., contributed to the English pictorial edition, have been selected or abridged, and prefixed to each play, with the addition of such original remarks, or information from other sources, as throw light either on the scenes of the dramatist, or the history of medieval art, taste, manners, or opinion. Those illustrations, whether literary or graphic, have a peculiar value in relation to the dramas of English History, and to those plays where the scene and date approach most nearly to the author's own time and country; as they enable us to call up before our own mind's eye' the personages and adjuncts of the scenes, in shapes and colors resembling those in which they rose before the poet's own mental vision.' An Introduction' is given to each play, containing some brief critical notices of their several characteristics of style, versification, design, and of tone and color of thought, together with a detailed bibliographical account of each, as to the probable date of its composition, the state of the text, and the variations between the several old editions. The merely bibliographical material herein contained is drawn, of course, from preceding editors; but the whole has been re-cast for this purpose; partly because Mr. VERPLANCK often dissents from the conclusions of the editors to whom he is most indebted for his facts, but chiefly because he wished to present the separate evidence, as to each play, in the same point of view and with the same object, as parts of a single inquiry, and that not one of purely antiquarian curiosity, but as tracing out SHAKSPEARE'S intellectual history and character, by gathering from various and sometimes slight and circumstantial or collateral points of testimony, the order and succession of his works, assigning each one to its probable epoch, noting the variations or differences of style and of versification between them, and in some cases the alterations and improvements of the same play by the author himself, in the progress of his taste and experience; thus following out, through each successive change, the luxuriant growth of his poetic faculty and his comic power, and, finally, the still nobler expansion of the moral wisdom, the majestic contempla-. tion, the terrible energy, the matchless fusion of the impassioned with the philosophical, that distinguished the matured mind of the GREAT BARD. SHAKSPEARE'S works thus edited, elaborately illustrated with engravings, many of them exquisite in taste and spirit, and others equally valuable in a historical and antiquarian point of view; beautifully printed upon fine white paper, and presented with corresponding taste in all its externals; will secure alike the public admiration and a long-continued patronage.

PICCIOLA: THE PRISONER OF FENESTRELLA: or Captivity Captive. By X. B. SAINTINE. A new Edition, with Illustrations. In one volume. pp. 154. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD.

WE are informed that during the eight years which have elapsed since the first appearance of the work whose title we have given above, it has assumed the position of a classic. It has been crowned by the Academy Française, and has passed through numberless editions, in every form and at every price, from the costly and elegant édition de luxe, to the cheap volume for schools. In England it has met with a cordial reception; and in this country the favor with which it has been re

ceived is attested by the number of editions through which it has passed, the appearance of an impression in the original, and the demand for imported copies. Under these circumstances the publishers of this beautiful little tale have judged rightly in thinking that its numerous admirers would be pleased to possess it in a form more suited to its merits than any in which it has heretofore appeared in this country. It is embellished with good illustrations, and is furnished with an introduction from the author. We have read 'Picciola' through three times; and yet on going over it after each perusal, for the purpose of selecting the passages which had excited our deepest interest, and most forcibly enchained our attention, we felt the full force of what the French term l'embarras des richesses. When STERNE sets apart his solitary prisoner isolate, alone, notching his still-beginning never-ending days of restless misery with a rusty nail upon his staff — although the picture is drawn with a very few touches of the pencil, we feel the pathos which characterizes it, and the iron enters our soul as it enters that of the poor captive. But in the book before us, so like Robinson Crusoe is it in its faithfulness, so Baron TRENCKISH in its interest, we are made familiar with all the thoughts of the captive. We watch with him the swelling of the paved walk which at length disparts, and introduces to view the little picciola plant; we survey with him its minutest characteristics, and await with the deep interest with which it impresses him its gradual unfolding to the consummate flower. These little incidents, with the accessories of the tale, for such we can hardly help. regarding the other portions of the story, replete with entertainment though they are, make up, as we have said, one of the most delightful volumes we have read for years; and as such we commend it to the affections and admiration of our readers.

HOMES AND HAUNTS OF THE MOST EMINENT BRITISH POETS. BY WILLIAM HOWITT. In two volumes. pp. 1102. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THESE Volumes are not strictly biographical; and for this reason there are some poets of considerable eminence of whom little mention is made, and others none, not because they were not entitled to much notice, but because there is nothing of deep interest or novelty connected with their homes and abodes. Here however are twenty-two poets, from CHAUCER down to BYRON; and in connection with a biographical sketch of each is given a picture of their dwellings. And a very pleasant thing it is, while you are reading of these eminent men of genius, who have filled the world with their renown, to be made acquainted with their homes and haunts;' to sit with MILTON in his cottage at Chalfont; or walk with POPE through his beautiful grounds at Twickenham; or muse with THOMSON in his cottage at Kew. Take the familiar narratives of the volume before us, in connection with the illustrations, to which Mr. H. W. HEWET, one of our best wood-engravers, has done ample justice, and you have familiarly before you the land-marks of their age, as they lived, moved, and had their being.' Such a work, one might well suppose, should secure a wide sale.

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