AMYMONE.* MISS Eliza Lynn is certainly one of the most remarkable writers of the present day. Selecting for her subjects themes of high antiquity, requiring deep research and philosophical investigation, she treats them with all the facility and success of a mature and highly disciplined intellect. Only the other day she revelled amid the wondrous dreams and practices of the old Egyptians. To-day a theme no less ambitious is chosen. Pericles and Aspasia, Xanthippos, the son of the all-powerful statesman, and leagued with Cleon against him; the famed sculptor, Phidias, loving, but without return, Chrysanthe; Socrates, Alcibiades, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, names that adorned the most brilliant epoch of Athenian history; besides the heroine Amymone, her husband Methion; Crethon, their aristocratic patron; Antiphon, a luxurious astrologer, and Xeuxos, a Thessalian sorceress, help to fill up pictures, the outlines of which are supplied by ample reading, the substance by the genius that revives the past. The moral life of Greece in the times of Pericles is separated from our own by so wide and deep an abyss that it is venturesome even to tread upon the brink. Miss Lynn, in the fervency of youth and love of her subject, clothes Grecian forms with the spirit of modern England, and colours them with the good-will and innocence of her own heart. Whatever may be the opinion in regard to the education of the eloquent and fascinating Aspasia, it is impossible not to admire Miss Lynn's advocacy of her heart's truth. It is almost impossible to figure to oneself those mental and personal accomplishments which made a pupil of Socrates and a lover of Pericles, and habits of dissipation such as Plutarch has depicted to us. As to the love of the Greeks not being characterised by that mysterious sentiment of intercommunication of soul with soul as with the moderns, the very idea to the contrary conveys absurdity on its facelove may have been idealised by a refined civilisation, but its essence has always been the same. The varied aspects, public and private, of Athenian life, all the details of ordinary occupations and enjoyments, are depicted with a force and minuteness of which Miss Lynn gave a first striking example in "Azeth." In the present instance she has been even more successful than in her previous work. The strength displayed in the mastery of Athenian mind is only equalled by the careful accuracy with which she delineates manners; and " Amymone" will be treasured as a remarkable work, replete at once with instruction and amusement. GOWRIE: OR, THE KING'S PLOT.† THE publication of an entirely new work by so distinguished a writer as Mr. James, at a greatly reduced price, and of equal extent, with those usually produced in three volumes, is an event that demands some no Amymone. A Romance of the Days of Pericles. By the Author of " Azeth, the Egyptian." 3 vols. Richard Bentley. † Gowrie: or, The King's Plot. By G. P. R. James, Esq. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. tice; the more especially so, as several of our most popular authors are of opinion that the old and expensive system of the three-volumed novel, might be done away with, to the benefit of all concerned it. Mr. James explains in his preface the motives which have induced him to follow such a course, and we agree with him that the publication of an entirely new work, in a series, may give an impetus to the sale of that collection; but we doubt if it will favour the sale of the particular new work in question; although, with the exception of Mr. James's views in regard to the King's complicity in the Gowrie affair, to which we by no means assent, it is, in most respects, equal in point of interest, and in brilliancy of composition, to any of his previous works. The diminution of price, great as it is, is, we must however add, not sufficient to produce any great effect. To accomplish this, a very marked reduction must take place, such indeed as has already been effected in quarters to which Mr. James has not given credit for the reforms that have been already wrought in cheap publications. TALES, ESSAYS, AND POEMS.* The most common Ir is a modern affectation to write for a purpose. place fiction or imaginative essay is dressed up in a pseudo-philosophy, and the most discursive and inapposite narrative is allowed to put forth an unanswered claim to the noblest of all objects, "to express the want, in our times, of a true, social education; for the rich as well as the poor -to plead for humane relations between the various classes of society, instead of such as are purely mercenary and falsely styled 'utilitarian.' This is a theme now so re-iteratedly disclaimed upon by a certain school, that it has become mere cant-the expression of the thing without the purport-the puppet without the principle of vitality, and it will be the bankrupt-stock of a large firm. Had Mr. Gostick allowed his Essays and Tales to stand simply on their own merits, they might have earned a kindly notice, although most have already appeared in the pages of magazines or minor periodicals, but when so serious a subject as social education for the rich and the poor is illustrated by such feeble attempts at humour, as "Money or no Money," or by the want of common information displayed in the introduction to a "Tale of Peru," the cause is little honoured by its advocates. A YACHT VOYAGE TO NORWAY.† THIS is a book to which we shall return with pleasure. Incidents of a yacht voyage amid the rock-bound coasts of Scandinavia, with their finny and winged tribes to awaken the sportsman's prowess, if told in a straightforward and unaffected manner, cannot but be replete with interest. A glance has sufficed to show us, that we shall not be disappointed, and that we have in Mr. Ross a narrator full of freshness and reality. Tales, Essays, and Poems, by Joseph Gostick, Author of the "Spirit of German Poetry," &c. Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. By W. A. Ross, Esq. 2 vols. Henry Colburn. OBSERVATIONS ON ANEURISM.* SUBJECTS of a purely professional character scarcely come within the sphere of our critical labours, but Dr. Bellingham having forwarded a copy of his little work on aneurism, it is but justice to him to say that it appears to be a careful and satisfactory exposition of the subject, and where so important an advantage to humanity is at stake, as the superseding the formidable operation of the ligature by mere compression, it is one that commands attention. PAUL CLIFFORD.† AT the period of the first appearance of "Paul Clifford," Sir E. B. Lytton stated, that without pausing to inquire what realm of manners, or what order of crime and sorrow are open to art, and capable of administering to the proper ends of fiction, he had in this peculiar work the objects in view-First, to draw attention to two errors in our penal institutions, viz., a vicious prison-discipline and a sanguinary criminal code--the habit of corrupting the boy by the very punishment that ought to redeem him, and then hanging the man on the first occasion, as. the easiest way of getting rid of our own blunders. A second and a lighter object was to show, that there is nothing essentially different between vulgar vice and fashionable vice-that the slang of the one circle is but an easy paraphrase of the cant of the other. After the lapse of eight years, and upon the occasion of publishing the present cheap edition, Sir Edward B. Lytton says— That There is in this work a subtler question suggested, but not solved. question which perplexes us in the generous ardour of our early youthwhich, unsatisfactory as all metaphysics, we rather escape from than decide as we advance in years, viz.-make what laws we please, the man who lives within the pale can be as bad as the man without. Compare the Paul Clifford of the fiction with the William Brandon; the hunted son and the honoured father, the outcast of the law, the dispenser of the law-the felon, and the judge; and, as at the last, they front each other, one on the seat of justice, the other at the convict's bar, who can lay his hand on his heart and say, that the Paul Clifford is a worse man than the William Brandon ? There is no immorality in a truth that enforces this question; for it is precisely those offences which society cannot interfere with, that society requires fiction to expose. Society is right, though youth is reluctant to acknowledge it. Society can form only certain regulations necessary for its self-defencethe fewer the better-punish those who invade, leave unquestioned those who respect them. But fiction follows truth into all the strongholds of convention; strikes through the disguise, lifts the mask, bares the heart, and leaves a moral wherever it brands a falsehood. Observations on Aneurism, and its Treatment by Compression. By O'Bryen Bellingham, M.D., Edinburgh. John Churchill. + Paul Clifford. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., with a Frontispiece. from a Design by H. K. Browne, engraved by W. T. Green. 1 THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE AND HUMORIST. CONTENTS FOR OCTOBER. MY FRENCH GOVERNESS. BY DOCTOR DRYASDUST, F.S.A. . BLACK, RED, AND GOLD. BY CAPTAIN MEDWIN A VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF CRESSY AND AGINCOURT. 199 A FEW MONTHS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. BY LIEUT.-COLONEL E. MY GUARDIAN ANGEL. BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL TICK; OR, MEMOIRS OF AN OLD ETON Box. BY CHARLES IT CANNOT BE SO LONG AGO. BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ. THE HABITUE'S NOTE-BOOK. BY CHARLES HERVEY, ESQ. . A LITERARY NOTICES :-Affection: its Flowers and Fruits. Tale of the Times.-Beauchamp; or, the Error. By G. P. R. James, Esq.-Presbytery Examined: an Essay, Critical and Historical, on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation. By the Duke of Argyll.-Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Lord Braybrooke. Vol. III. 265 to 268 215 TO CORRESPONDENTS. Mr. AINSWORTH begs it to be distinctly understood that no Contributions whatever sent him, either for the NEW MONTHLY or AINSWORTH'S MAGAzines, will be returned. All articles are sent at the risk of the writers, who should invariably keep copies. |