LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, by the Rev. M. Russell, L. L. D. Forming volume 63 of Harpers' Family Library.

The detached biography of a splendid character, is a kind of work we are delighted to get hold of. It is so investing history with the vivid interest interest of personal narrative, and it is instructive to watch step by step the towering names of the world, as they ascended to that dizzy eminence where they were to remain fixed in the attention of mankind for ever. There, perhaps, never was a character, who won for himself the loftiest power or achieved many illustrious actions, who left behind him in his character such a legacy of uncertainty to his historians, as Oliver Cromwell. The instantaneous sub version too, like the tropic night, of his dynasty and his power, and the wonder ful alacrity with which the nation not only suffered, but supported and yielded itself up, to the iron sway of his royal enemy and successor, in no way tended to shed much light upon the motives, or the principles of a man, whose hated magnificence, whose authority, and whose fame, all arose from the deep depression of the fortune of reigning powers. Shame, that the clouds which ignorance and faction had gathered over his memory, should have been suffered, during so many generations, to remain. Greater shame, that while so many historians have been found to record his hypocrisy, his tyranny, his selfishness, and his other thousand fancied or real crimes, none, with but few exceptions, should have as yet done justice to the full grandeur of his commanding genius, should have celebrated that aptitude for command which rendered his will irresistible, and finally supreme, and should have eulogized as it deserved, the pervading vigor of his administration, the invincible power of his arms, and the lofty jealousy of his nation's rights, which wrung submission from the haughty Louis, prostrated the Spaniard and the Dutchman, and made his country's flag respected and triumphant on every ocean in the world.

Russel, in writing the life of this amazing personage, has brought to the subject a full knowledge of its difficulties, and has availed himself of an immense variety of information, which had been accumulating during a long series of years. It would have heen more fortunate for his own fame, had he assumed more of the responsibility and the authority of the philosophical historian, had he fairly grappled with his subject, and, instead of temporizing with its difficulties, subserved them to his use, and investigated Cromwell's character with the fearless boldness of a judge invested with full powers for his office. He has brought to the task many excellent qualifications, great industry, intimate acquaintance with his subject, and a strict desire to do impartial justice to his hero; and through his very anxiety to give both sides of the question, has deprived his narrative of a continuous interest, and though, from the prevalence of these causes, his work wants the boldness and the rank of elevated historystill, it is worthy of commendation, as a full and unbiassed biography of one of the most extraordinary men who ever figured on the stage of the world, and we cannot too much laud the good taste which induced the Harpers' to embody such a valuable authority, on such an intensely interesting subject and period, in their most excellent 'Family Library.'

POEMS, NARRATIVE AND LYRICAL, by William Motherwell. Glasgow; David Robertson. London; Longman.

A high rank as a Poet will be secured to Motherwell by this volume. There is in it all the elements of Poetical greatness. We feel the more pleasure in doing him this willing justice, as by introducing him more fully to their notice, we will be conferring a favor of no ordinary kind upon our countrymen. For ourselves, indeed, we have read his poetry with an interest, a stirring of the soul, to which we had long been a stranger. We so seldom meet in publications of this description, by untried authors, aught beside the fine spun fancies of diseased sentimentality, or the overwrought descriptions of imagination, that we took up the volume, with little else than curiosity, and certainly without any expectation. To communicate some of the passages, which so soon and so nobly undeceived us, to the public, is but a debt of gratitude to the delightful disappointment we received.

There are two fine peculiarities in Motherwell's genius. Its power and its intensity. Throughout the whole volume, in whatever vein he writes, he writes under the full influence of his inspiration. There are no expletives, no exhausted fancies,-we meet with no feebleness, no mere rhymes, none of that poverty of thought, which must lay down twenty worthless lines, for a foundation, ere one good idea is produced;-all is strength, richness and overflowing might. His stream flows from an ample fountain, and though often noisy, and sometimes diffused, it is never shallow, but is always deep, powerful, and refreshing. Again, whatever he writes, is tinctured with the enthusiasm of his soul. He lifts his voice in a war song, like the frenzy of a northern Scald. The heart rings to his verses, as the sword of Cuthullin would from the buckler of his foe in one of Ossian's fights. He has transferred the fire of the Scandinavian warriors to his song, we hear the ringing of the brands, the crash of the onset, the gushing of the life blood:-we are borne upon the mighty wave of battle, and forget every thing in the ambition to do, and die like a hero. Our readers will feel this, when they read the following verses from 'The Battle Flag of Sigurd,' the Magic Standard of the Northern Poets, which always carried victory to the army over which it waved, but as certain death to its bearer. The glorious legend he has made a worthy use of. These fiery verses are such as might be sung by a lion-hearted warrior, rushing on to conquest and to death.

THE BATTLE
The eagle hearts of all the North
Have left their stormy strand;
The warriors of the world are forth
To choose another land!

FLAG OF SIGURD.

Again, their long keels sheer the wave,
Their broad sheets court the breeze;
Again, the reckless and the brave,
Ride lords of weltering seas.
Nor swifter from the well-bent bow
Can feathered shaft be sped,

Than o'er the ocean's flood of snow
Their snoring galleys tread.
Then lift the can to bearded lip,
And smite each sounding shield,
Wassaile! to every dark-ribbed ship,
To every battle-field!

So proudly the Scalds raise their voices of triumph,

As the Northermen ride over the broadbosom'd billow.

Aloft, Sigurdir's battle-flag
Streams onward to the land,
Well may the taint of slaughter lag
On yonder glorious strand.
The waters of the mighty deep,
The wild birds of the sky,

Hear it like vengeance shoreward sweep,
Where moody men must die.

The waves wax wroth beneath our keel-
The clouds above us lower,

They know the battle-sign, and feel

THE FIVE NIGHTS OF ST. ALBANS, a Romance of the sixteenth century, by the author of First and Last.' Philadelphia; Carey, Lea & Elanchard.

This splendid romance is a daring, and, we almost say, successful attempt to revive Lewis' method of fascinating the attention, by an unsparing use of supernatural excitement. On its first publication in England, a few years back, it commanded in an extraordinary manner the public n.ind, by the great power of the style, and the unshrinking manner in which the author used the terrific in his narrative. The writer is evidently a man of strong genius, with great force of expression, and by linking the unearthly with the natural, and freely drawing upon his own imagination and his reader's credulity, he has constructed a tale, steeped in excitement from beginning to end. There are many places where he holds the fancy absolutely captive, and where we cannot help resigning ourselves to the mysterious fascination of which he is such a master in the use. With all their extravagance there is something of sublimity in the sensation such appalling scenes produce-and we must accord our warm admiration, to the manner in which they have been executed.

AN ESSAY ON ELOCUTION, designed for the use of Schools and Private Learners, by Samuel Kirkham, author of English Grammar in Familiar Lectures.' Baltimore; John W. Woods.

This is a very valuable work on one of the most important sciences-accomplishment it can hardly now be termed--which the tone and character of modern society has created. With much that is defective, and much that is wanting in the scientific portion of the work, but which can be easily remedied in a future edition-this essay has many features of excellence. The author has rigidly and wisely adhered to the old and correct models of English Orthoepy, justly discountenancing the weak innovators, who would so egregiously mar the fine simplicity of our language, he has given the cream of what preceding writers have said upon the subject, and added much excellent information of his own. While we object to the rambling disquisitions of the preface, as unworthy of such a book, we have a more serious fault to find with the liberty which he has taken upon him in altering the style of some of the authors whose writings he adduces as illustrations. No quibbling can excuse a license so unwarrantable, as any unauthorized interference with the works left to the sacred protection of posterity; it has ever been one of the most serious misfortunes of literature and ought to be decisively discountenanced. With this slight exception, which we trust the author will rectify, we admire the work as one of the best practical treatises we have, and well worthy of encouragement by all teachers.

CANTERBURY TALES, First Series, by Sophia and Harriet Lee. Philadelphia; Carey, Lea & Blanchard.

These tales had the good fortune to be published before any of the similar collections, now so frequent, were in existence, and therefore, more from this novelty than any peculiar interest, attracted the attention of Lord Byron, as well as other eminent literary characters, who warmly praised them. Their ex

cellence, however, has received the long eulogium of near thirty years, during which they were read, and admired, and talked of, without a dissenting voice, to detract from the general admiration awarded to them. Their merit consists in a continual variety of incidents, and a delicate management of the plot, which holds the attention in a constant grasp, while the conversational character of the whole, and the charming vivacity of the dialogue, gives an agreeable relief to the entertainment we receive.

They were written, as we are informed in the preface to the present edition, (by Harriet, the surviving sister,) by these gifted young ladies in the midst of the bustle and the turmoil of domestic charges-and it is a fine illustration of their characters, that, with such incentives to fame as the popularity of these tales held forth, they should, as Harriet feelingly expresses it, have supplied the place of a mother to a numerous family.

The 'Canterbury Tales,' in the present form, are an acquisition to our literature, for they will continue to be popular while ordinary passions hold their sway.

POPULAR ESSAYS ON NAVAL SUBJECTS, by the author of a Year in Spain.' New-York; George Dearborn.

This little work, beautifully printed, in that attractive style which the enter prise of this spirited publisher has so mainly contributed to introduce in our city, is a reprint of three articles on Ships, Navy, and Navigation,' furnished by this deservedly popular writer, for the Encyclopedia Americana. It consists of a historical sketch of the three subjects above mentioned, written in an easy and graceful style; and the object of the publication, as is aptly termed in the preface, being to disinter the articles in question from the work of reference, in which, for some time, they have remained buried; and to place them in a convenient form before those who may be desirous of information on a subject of universal interest,' will be completely attained by the form in which they are reprinted. The preface contains some sensible and good-tempered remarks on the relative pay of the army and navy, well worthy the public attention.

ALICE PAULET, A SEQUEL TO SYDENHAM, OR MEMOIRS OF A MAN OF THE WORLD, by the author of 'Sydenham; 2 vols. Philadelphia E. L. Carey & A. Hart.

We commence the perusal of Alice Paulet, with that zest of excited feeling which we feel conscious, from our acquaintance in the same quarter, will not be disappointed. We sit down, as to the banquet of a celebrated epicure, where we have formerly experienced an exquisite treat, and of which the goût still lingers in our palates.

Those who have read the fine novel, of which this is the conclusion, will hasten to make themselves master of these volumes, when we assure them that they are even superior to their predecessors. There are fewer characters introduced upon the stage, but they are finished with far superior care. That of Alice in particular, is every way worthy of her hero, and her portrait is wrought with those fine and masterly touches which constitute the perfection

of painting. The cold and superior philosophy of Sydenham, directing his manly feelings and accurate sensibility, is an achievement of the highest order in the realms of fiction. No novel that ever was published, for these volumes are but a part of the former work, has depended less upon incident to engage our attention, yet there are none which succeed more powerfully in interesting it. And why? because the author of Sydenham has studied human nature in those minute recesses where other observers have never thought of looking, while he is not less master of its more prominent traits and his characters have, therefore, that complete fidelity, and that reflected truth; which engage and delight us in the development of emotions which we have all a thousand times experienced, and which seem, in the beauty of their delineation, far less like fiction than like fact. It is this fine and pervading perfection which will make these novels be read with interest by the firmest mind, as well as the most frivo lous, and which warrants us in assigning to the author the foremost rank among the fictitious writers of the day.

THE BOOK OF MY LADY, A MELANGE, by a Bachelor Knight. Philadelphia; Key & Biddle.

'Here is song of war for knight,-Lay of love for lady bright,'-Tales of wonder for the curious tales of peril for the brave, of olden time, for the so inclined, in a variety of style diversified as the subjects. There is rhapsody for the warm, and sobriety for the sad. There is spirit for the gay, and poetry for the fair; romance and song, history and fiction, mingled, indeed, as he says himself, in a 'Melange;' yet which it becomes us to say is but a little delightful.

We admire the spirit in which the book is written. It comes on us in 'this age of calculations,' like a sunbeam from the days of Froissart. We like the chivalrous gallantry, the romantic devotion, the generous enthusiasm; all bespeak, not the cold respect of an economizing, calculating generation, but the high, and to us congenial, feeling of some southern and sunny land, where hearts beat with a prouder and a loftier sympathy than in these colder climes. The ladies should all buy this book, or rather the gentlemen should all buy it for their respective favorites. They will take a pleasure when reading it, to think that it must have been written by one of those gallant spirits, who, had he lived in the days of the old romance would have broken a lance against every comer in defence of the peerless pretensions of his own ladye love.

BROAD GRINS AND POETICAL VAGARIES, by George Colman the younger. Philadelphia; E. L. Carey & A. Hart.

Colman was accounted by his contemporaries one of the greatest wits of his age, and here are all his facetiæ congregated together in a variety, which will certainly, we have no doubt, succeed in producing a broad grin; but we will not stake our critical acumen so far as to prophesy whether it will be a yawn or a laugh. At all events we would earnestly advise every one to buy the book, as, in these dolorous times, even the experiment is well worth a trial.