The Tell-Tale Heart - The Pioneer, January 1843 — reading text

ing peace and innocence where only degradation e $ The evidence of intellectual power and of just and skulked before, and which is ensuring stability to noble feeling, which the book in common with all that our freedom, by teaching men to set free and respect Mr. Mathews has yet written, affords, leads us to look themselves, without which they can have no true with high expectation to his future literary career. He reverence for anything. is destined, we trust, to achieve a brilliant reputation, and what is far better, to perform worthy and endur- Tue Ricuts of ConscieENcE AND OF PROPERTY; ing service to his country and her literature. or the true issue of the Convent question. By George Ticknor Curtis. 8vo. pp. 39. Boston: C. C. Little and J. Brown. 1842. American Notes, ror GENERAL CIRCULATION. Mr. Curtis is already favorably known to the legal By Charles Dickens. portion of the community, by his valuable contribu- This book has been too widely read to need any tions on the subject of Maritime Law. He certainly elaborate criticism on our part. There are one or deserves the gratitude of every thinking mind for this two points in it, however, on which we wish to say a timely, able, and eloquent plea in favor of justice, word. The book has been loudly complained of as freedom, and religious toleration. It argues a dig- superficial, and as vilifying our country and its in- nity and boldness of character of a high order, thus stitutions. We do not think that it can fairly be to advance as the champion of a right against which called superficial, (in a derogatory sense,) because it the popular voice has been so long clamorous. We was not intended to be deep. Mr. Dickens’s philoso- hope that its circulation will be as extensive, and its phy has always been rather of the eyes and heart, appreciation as grateful as it so truly deserves ; for all than of that higher and more comprehensive kind, that is required, in order to secure liberty and regard with which the inner eye and the soul have to do. of both public and private right, is that the mind of Such a traveller as De Tocqueville is properly ex- the many should be disabused of its too easily ac- pected to give a philosophical analysis of our govern- quired and fostered prejudices.  i f ? 46 THE PIONEER. ee Sparks’s Lire of WasninetTon. Abridged by the Tappan and Dennett, of this city, have in press and author. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 330 and 344. Boston: will publish in the course of this month, a “ History Tappan and Dennett. 1842. of the Hawaiin or Sandwich Islands,” by James J. Of the merits of the original of this work we need Jarvis, member of the American Oriental Society, say nothing. It has already become established as and formerly editor of the Sandwich Islands Gazette. the only biography of Washington. Of the abridg- It will give an account of the ancient manners and ment it is enough to state that it is done by Mr. customs, poetry, &c., of the people of the islands; of Sparks himself, to prove that it is accurate and com- their early traditions— of the discovery by the Span- prehensive. This, as well as the other publications ish in the sixteenth century, and of the re-discovery by of the same house, which we have seen, is well and captain Cook, with many particulars not before pub- handsomely printed, and in every way creditable to lished, respecting his unfortunate death by the hands their taste and enterprise. of the natives. It will also include a life of Talye- hameha the Great, — the civil and political history of the group, and the introduction and progress of “ AMERICAN Criminat TriA.s,” by P. W. Chand- Christianity and civilization unto the present year. ler, editor of the Law Reporter, has been received in It will be issued in one volume, large octavo, in England with extraordinary favor: perhaps no Amer- beautiful style, with steel plates of scenery, portrait, ican book, since Irving ceased to publish, has been and a map, and with numerous wood illustrations of noticed more extensively or in terms of higher com- the finest description. mendation. The London Spevtator gave it two ex- tended notices, the last of whivh styles the work “an E. P. Peabody, 13 West street, Boston, will soon able and interesting volume,’' and says “ the autum- publish the first American edition of the celebrated nal leisure having enabled us to peruse it with atten- “ Confessions” of St. Augustine. The translation tion, we propose to notice it more fully, as well for the adopted in this edition was made in England in the merit of its execution, as for the curious picture of old seventeenth century, but whether it is that of the Ro- colonial manners it presents, and the suggestions it man Catholic Sir Tobias Mathews, in 1624, or the offers to the students of history and human nature. Protestant Rev. W. Watts, D. D., in 1650, we are The plan and execution of the American Criminal unable to say. We believe, however, that it has been Trials are rather peculiar. They are not a mere ser- slightly revised, and in some parts the recent version vile copy or dry abridgment of existing reports, where of Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D., Oxford, 1841, has been the only merit of the compiler consists in calling pub- substituted for the older translation. lic attention to certain proceedings and facilitating their perusal by collecting the scattered records into a series ; nor are they merely a skilful and elaborate Little and Brown, of this city, will in a few days description of singular trials, suppressing what is for- publish a work in two volumes, 12mo., entitled “ Life mal or subordinate and bringing out the more striking in Mexico during a residence of two years in that points. Although skilful in his treatment and often country. By Mme. C De La B——.” There is a graphic in his effects, Mr. Chandler has generally preface to it by William H. Prescott, the distinguished chosen such American criminal trials as throw a light historian of Ferdinand and Isabella, who says — upon American colonial history, or exhibit the phases “The present work is the result of observations of public opinion—it may be of public madness. made during a two years’ residence in Mexico, by a Hence there is frequently an interest over and above lady, whose position there, made her intimately ac- that of the facts of the trials themselves, from the quainted with its society, and opened to her the best public events with which they were connected, or the sources of information in regard to whatever could in- terest an enlightened foreigner. It consists of letters singular and criminal public delusion which they re- written to the members of her own family, and really, cord.” not intended originally, — however incredible the as- The London Examiner says “it is extremely well sertion, — for publication. Feeling a regret that such done : the author’s style is clear and simple ; his habit rich stores of instruction and amusement, from which I have so much profited, myself, should be reserved of patient investigation sits easily upon him; and none for the eyes of a few friends, only, I strongly recom- of the graphic or more striking points seem to have mended that they should be given to the world. This escaped his notice. We trust he will be encouraged is now done, with a few such alterations and omissions to proceed with his scheme, which deserves welcome as were necessary in a private correspondence ; and although the work would derive more credit from the from both countries.” author’s own name, than from anything which I can The Monthly Review also notices the work very say, yet as she declines prefixing it, I feel much pleas- favorably, and the Law Magazine devotes to it a ure in making this statement by way of introduction leading article of nearly thirty pages. to the public.” yey We present our readers, in the present number, with two splendid steel engravings by oneof the most eminent of American engravers, Joseph Andrews, who is engaged to supply us with a succession of others of equal value. The plate entitled “ Circe Going to the Sea-Side to meet Ulysses,” is from one of Flaxman’s famous illustra- tions of Homer. The passage referred to, is in the beginning of the twelfth book of the Odyssey. “Two Hundred Years Ago ” is a representation of a street in London in the seventeenth century. The Illustrations of the Rose were designed by our accomplished friend, Hammatt Billings, and engraved by J. G. Chandler. tn OP 1oe sere  FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. —- > On the fourth of February, 1842, the manuscripts