Meanwhile, we accept with thankfulness the good that we find in his writings, and are especially grateful that these writings are furnished in the editions before us in so attractive a form--and that the volume of his Poems is embellished with so good a portrait of the author.

CAPE COD.*-Mr. Thoreau belongs unmistakably to the school of Mr. Emerson, though he is anything but an imitator of his master. He is the personification of that tendency which, at times, seizes multitudes of boys and not a few cultivated men, to flee society and to take to the woods, that they may converse with the universe, and live according to nature. With him this tendency became a passion. He understood and loved nature as but few men have ever done. Now and then a practised woodsman, or a hawk-eyed Indian, may have had a keener observation than he, but he possessed an unmeasured advantage above them, in that he had thought and studied before he began to use his eyes.

This book on Cape Cod abounds in that interest which sharp observation, and minute and faithful recording, even of the most trivial objects, never fail to impart. The descriptions are graphic in the extreme. They would almost enable a boy born upon the prairies to see and hear the roar of the ocean. The waste of hardened beach, the flying sloops and schooners ever on the wing, or standing all day in the horizon, the battered and half-covered hulks, the fish flakes of Provincetown, the simple, shrewd, yet earnest dwellers upon the Cape, are all painted to the life.

But Mr. Thoreau is hard and scornful, as we might expect from a stoney-eyed observer who looks through nature and finds no God. His comments upon everything that pertains to the faith of Christian men, or the worship of the Supreme, are sarcastic and bitter. The humor and wit scarcely redeem the inhumanity and irreverence combined, which characterize these sallies.

Now and then, however, this hard and scornful man relents to a kindlier word. The soul of human sympathy gushes out in a strange tenderness, and when he muses upon the fate of a few score of shipwrecked emigrants, he reaches upward and forward

Cape Cod. By HENRY D. THOREAU. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865. 18mo. pp. 252. New Haven: T. H. Pease. Price $1.50.

with irrepressible faith to an immortal life, where there is love

and worship and peace.

Thoreau's collected writings are unique in the history of literature, and will take and hold a peculiar place hereafter, when what is peculiarly American in our writers becomes the subject of critical comment and research.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE.*--Of all the attempts to render the Iliad into English verse, this, by the Earl of Derby, will, on the whole, be pronounced the most successful. Chapman, Hobbes, Pope, Cowper, Sotheby, and others, have given us versions, each with some special excellence--unless we except that of Hobbes--but Lord Derby comes the nearest to the original Homer. He is sensuous, yet rhythmical; faithful, yet flowing; spirited, yet not failing in ease and grace. We can read the version almost as though it were an original poem, and yet we cannot read it with the satisfaction that we have a faithful reproduction of the work of another. Chapman is quaint and tedious, though often fresh and striking. Hobbes is rough and doggerel-like. Pope gives us the artificial verse of the times of Queen Anne, as far as possible removed from the natural melody of the times of the old bard, besides taking all manner of liberties with the sense and imagery of the original. Cowper is faithful, but homely, literal, but harsh. Sotheby is elegant and flowing, but too refined for the fresh and musical Greek. The Earl of Derby has surpassed them all, as you may prove by putting the translation into the hands of any boy who is fond of Robinson Crusoe, or any girl who delights in the Tales of the Arabian Nights.

Mr. Scribner has published this first edition of this charming book in a beautiful style.

SKIRMISHES AND SKETCHES.t-It has been the fashion for some time to speak disparagingly of Gail Hamilton. Whether it is that, after her first successes, her elation was too perceptible; or

* The Iliad of Homer rendered into English Blank Verse. By Edward, Earl OF DERBY. In two Volumes. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1865. New Haven: Judd & White. Price $5.

+ Skirmishes and Sketches. By GAIL HAMILTON. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo pp. 447. New Haven: T. H. Pease. Price $2.

her naturally exuberant spirits betrayed her into speaking too freely and confidently of herself; it is not important now to decide. At any rate, many persons were repelled who had been at first attracted by the humor with which her descriptions abounded, and the fearless manner in which she spoke out her mind. The volume before us contains nearly thirty of her most characteristic papers. They are on a great variety of topics. Several of them we remember to have seen and heard when they first appeared as contributions to the newspapers and magazines of the day. Her analysis of the song "Glory Hallelujah," which we find here, is an admirable piece of criticism. The scathing rebuke of the "New School of Biography,"-with its "Bobbin Boy," its "Pioneer Boy," et id omne genus-well deserves to be republished. Her exposure of the weak points in the organization and management of many Sabbath Schools deserves serious attention. In fact, as we look through the book, we are quite willing to confess that few writers of the day can give to the public so readable a volume as this.

ALFRED HAGART'S HOUSEHOLD.*-This story was first issued in "Good Words," and is very sweet and touching, true to Scottish life, and true to human nature. No one can read it without being at first amused, and then softened to tears.

THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.t-This inimitable story, which is certainly a product of genius, deserves to be reprinted in a separate form; and deserves to be sold by the ten-thousand.

*

Alfred Hagart's Household. By ALEXANDER SMITH. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. New Haven: T. H. Pease. Price $1.

The Man Without a Country. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865. New Haven: T. H. Pease. Price 10 cents.

NEW

THE

ENGLANDER.

No. XCIII.

OCTOBER, 1865.

ARTICLE I.-THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.

PART II. TO THE END OF CENTURY XV., AND BEYOND IT TO THE CLOSE OF THE PAPACY OF LEO X.*

LET us now look at the leading members of that circle of scholars and humanists by whom Lorenzo de' Medici was surrounded, omitting to speak of those artists, poets, and others, who, although they contributed much to the brilliancy of Florence during this period, have a place outside of the properly humanistic fraternity.

Of this circle Christopher Landinus (Cristoforo Landino) was a leading member. Born in Florence in 1434, he was initiated into the rudiments of learning at Volterra by Angiolo da Lodi, whose interest he drew towards himself to such a de gree, that the master not only in his life time assisted Landino by pecuniary support, but charged his heirs also to defray his expenses while pursuing the study of philosophy. In 1457 he

* For the previous Articles of this Series, now concluded, see Vol. XXIII. 1864, p. 661, and Vol. XXIV., 1865, p. 35, and p. 413.

was appointed professor of belles letters at Florence, and continued to give lectures, it would seem, until late in life he received the appointment of secretary to the signoria. By way of acknowledgment for his services in this capacity, he received the present of a palace. In 1497, having obtained a release from his duties in the chancery of the republic, he retired to Prato Vecchio, where his family originated, and spent his days in study until his death, which occurred in 1504.

Landino was brought into close contact with the Medicis by his office as tutor of Lorenzo, to which we have already adverted. Of Pietro, son of Cosimo, and father of Lorenzo, who may be called his especial patron, he speaks in warm terms of admiration and respect, and between him and Lorenzo a very friendly connection subsisted, as long as the latter lived. Among Landino's principal works we name his Commentaries on Virgil, Horace, and Dante, and his three books of Latin poetry, to which he gave the name of Xandra, after a much admired lady of the time, Alessandra, daughter of Bartholomew Scala, Chancellor of Florence, and which, as far as printed, do not rise much above similar efforts of his contemporaries. He was also among the first to translate from Latin into Italian; his labors being directed towards Pliny's natural history, and John Simonetta's history of Francis Sforza. Both these translations were printed.* But of all his works those which relate to ethical philosophy are his best memorial; these are, beside some smaller treatises, the dialogues de nobil itate animi, and the Disputationes Camaldulenses, in four

books.

This last mentioned work, in the first book, discusses the comparative advantages of an active and a contemplative life. The question is debated between Leo Battista Alberti in favor of the latter, and Lorenzo de' Medici as an advocate of the former. Then in the second book the subject of discourse is enlarged so as to embrace the nature of the true good. In the third and fourth, Landino destroys the unity of impression by a discussion of the supposed allegories of Virgil's Æneid, and

* There is, in the library of Yale College, a copy of the cditio princeps of his Italian Pliny, a gift from the Rev. Chandler Robbins, of Boston.