GAME-BIRDS OF AMERICA. NO. VIII. AMERICAN STARLING OR MEADOW-LARK. THIS well-known inhabitant of our meadows like the Partridge, is sociable, somewhat gregarious, and partially migratory. The change of country, however, appears to be occasioned only by scarcity of food, and many of them pass the whole winter with us. They may be bought in our markets when snow is on the ground; and in the month of February, Wilson found them picking up a scanty subsistence in the company of the snow-birds, on a road over the heights of the Alleghanies. Its flight, like that of the Partridge, is laborious and steady. Though they collect their food from the ground, they are frequently shot on trees, their perch being either the main branches, or the topmost twigs. At the time of pairing, they exhibit a little of the jealous disposition of the tribe, but his character vindicated by his bravery, and the victory achieved, he retires from his fraternity to assist his mate in the formation of her nest. The flesh of the Meadow-Lark is white, and for size and delicacy, it is considered little inferior to the Partridge. In length, he measures ten and a half inches, in alar extent, nearly seventeen. Above, his plumage, as described by Nuttall, is variegated with black, bright bay, and ochreous. Tail, wedged, the feathers pointed, the four outer nearly all white; sides, thighs, and vent, pale ochreous, spotted with black; upper mandible brown, the lower bluish-white; iris, hazel; legs and feet, large, pale flesh-colour. In the young bird the color is much fainter than in the adult. This is the Rice and Reed-Bird of Pennsylvania | these he added the immense range of his migrations, and the Southern States, and the Boblink of New York and New England. He is of little size, but of great consequence, hailed with pleasure by the sportsman and the epicure, and dreaded as worse than a locust by the careful planter. Wilson has treated of him fully, and from his eloquent account we shall endeavor to select a few points in his history worthy of notice. According to his best biographer, then, three good qualities recommend him, particularly as these three are rarely found in the same individual-his plumage is beautiful, his song highly musical, and his flesh excellent. To and the havoc he commits. The winter residence of this species is from Mexico to the Amazon, from whence they issue in great hosts every spring. In the whole United States, north of Pennsylvania, they remain during the summer, raising their progeny; and as soon as the young are able to fly they collect together in great multitudes, and pour down on the oat-fields of New England. During the breeding season, they are dispersed over the country; but as soon as the young are able to fly, they collect together in great multitudes, like a torrent, depriving the proprietors of a good tithe of their harvest, but in return often supply his table with a very delicious dish. From all parts of the north and western regions they direct their course toward the south, and about the middle of August, revisit Pennsylvania, on their route to winter quarters. For several days they seem to confine themselves to the fields and uplands; but as soon as the seeds of the reed are ripe, they resort to the shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill in multitudes; and these places, during the remainder of their stay, appear to be their grand rendezvous. The reeds, or wild oats, furnish them with such abundance of nutritious food, that in a short time they become extremely fat, and are supposed by some of our epicures to be equal to the famous Ortolans of Europe. Their note at this season is a single chuck, and is heard overhead, with little intermission from morning till night. These are halcyon days for our gunners of all descriptions, and many a lame and rusty gun-barrel is put in requisition for the sport. The report of musketry along the reedy shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill is almost incessant, resembling a running fire. The markets of Philadelphia, at this season, exhibit proofs of the prodigious havoc made among these birds, for almost every stall is ornamented with some hundreds of Reed Birds. The Rice Bunting is seven inches and a half long, and eleven and a half in extent. His spring dress is as follows: upper part of the head, wings, tail, and sides of the neck, and whole lower parts, black; the feathers frequently skirted with brownishyellow, as he passes into the color of the female; back of the head, a cream color; back, black, seamed with brownish-yellow; scapulars, pure white; rump and tail coverts the same; lower part of the back, bluish-white; tail, formed like those of the Woodpecker genus, and often used in the same manner, being thrown in to support it while ascending the stalks of the reed; this habit of throwing in the tail it retains even in the cage; legs, a brownish flesh color; hind heel, very long; bill, a bluish-horn color; eye, hazel. In the month of June this plumage gradually changes to a brownish-yellow, like that of the female, which has the back streaked with brownish-black; whole lower parts, dull-yellow; bill, reddish-flesh color; legs and eyes as in the male. The young birds retain the dress of the female until early in the succeeding spring. The plumage of the female undergoes no material change of color. on the berries of the sour gum and red cedar. In the fall and beginning of summer, when fat, they are in high esteem for the table, and great numbers find purchasers in the market of Philadelphia. They have derived their name from one kind of their favorite food; from other sorts they have also been called Cherry Birds, and to some they are known by the name of Crown Birds. The Cedar-Bird, (Ampelis Americana,) is very | to the lower cultivated parts of the country to feed frequently shot at the same time with the Robin. The plumage of this bird is of an exquisitely fine and silky texture, lying extremely smooth and glossy. The name Chatterers has been given to them, but they make only a feeble, lisping sound, chiefly as they rise or alight. On the Blue Mountains, and other ridges of the Alleghanies, they spend the months of August and September, feeding on the abundant whortleberries; then they descend 70 REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene Halleck. Now first This volume is a perfect luxury to the eye, in its typo- Here the thought, redeemed as it is by beautiful expression, is worthy only of a sentimental poetaster of the Della Cruscan school; and we can easily imagine what a mocking twinkle would light the eye of its author, if some one should tell him that Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton were "kept bright" by the smiles and tears of woman. These, and one or two other passages in Halleck, are unworthy of his manly and cant-hating mind; and it is wonderful how they could have escaped his brilliant good sense. Fanny, and the Croaker Epistles are the most brilliant things of their kind in American literature, full of wit, fancy, and feeling, and in all their rapid transitions, characterized by an ethereal lightness of movement, a glancing felicity of expression, which betray a poet's plastic touch equally in the sentiment and the merriment. No American poems have been more eagerly sought after, and more provokingly concealed, than these. Three editions of Fanny have been published, but the difficulty of obtaining a copy has always been great. Many who were smitten with a love for it have been compelled to transcribe it from the copy of a more fortunate collector. The Croaker Epistles have been even more cunningly suppressed. Now we have both in a form which will endure with the stereotype plates. They evince the most brilliant characteristics of Halleck's genius, and continually suggest the thought, that if the mind of the author be so powerful and various in its almost extempore sport and play, it must have still greater capacity in itself. Fanny, and the Croaker Epistles swarm with local and personal allusions which a New-Yorker alone can fully and authors generally of the period when the poems were written, are all touched with a light and graceful pencil. Fanny is conceived and executed after the manner of Byron's Beppo and Don Juan. It is full of brilliant rogueries, produced by bringing sentiment and satire together with a shock. For instance, Dear to the exile is his native land, at the same time he never lacks heartiness. There are His vows are broke, Even while his parting kiss is warm; But woman's love all change will mock, In memory's twilight beauty seen afar: The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest; The leaves of Autumn smile when fading fast; In a mocking attempt to prove that New York exceeded Greece in the Fine Arts, we have the following convincing arguments: In sculpture we've a grace the Grecian master, In painting we have Trumbull's proud chef d'œuvre, His independence will endure foreverAnd so will Mr. Allen's lottery sign; And all that grace the Academy of Arts, From Dr. Hosack's face to Bonaparte's. In physic, we have Francis and McNeven, body's mind is made up on those points. The present edition is admirably adapted to convey to the reader Byron's idea of himself, the opinions formed of him by his contemporaries, and the effect of his several works on the Famed for long heads, short lectures, and long bills; public mind as they appeared. It contains an immense And Quackenboss, and others, who from heaven It would be impossible to give a notion of the genial satire of the Croakers by extracts. The following, from the epistle to the Recorder, is unmatched for felicity and exquisite contrast: The Cæsar passed the Rubicon With heim, and shield, and breast-plate on, And passed it with his wife and daughters. In the same piece occurs the following fine tribute to Bryant : Bryant, whose songs are thoughts that bless And virtue for the listening boy. They slumber in their autumn tomb; Bloom on, and will bloom on forever. Pope has become famous for his divine compliments, but certainly no poet ever celebrated the genius of another with more felicity and sweetness than in the above beautiful passage. It would be impossible to notice all the striking poems in this volume--and they are too favorably known to need it. There is one piece, however, which deserves especial commendation, and its merits do not appear to have called forth the eulogy which has been bountifully lavished on many others. We allude to his exquisite translation from Goethe, on the eighty-third page- the invocation to the ideal world, which precedes Faust. It is one of the gems of the volume. The Poetical Works of Lord Byron. Complete in one Volume. Collected and Arranged, with Illustrative Notes. Illustrated by Elegant Steel Engravings. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 8vo. This edition of Byron might bear the palm from all other American editions, in respect to its combination of cheapness with elegance, if it were not the most valuable in point of completeness and illustrative notes. It is a reprint of Murray's Library edition, and while executed in a similar style of typography, excells it, if we are not mistaken, in the number of its embellishments. It contains an admirable portrait of Byron, a view of Newstead Abbey, and also six fine steel engravings, executed with great beauty and finish. It is uniform with the same publisher's library edition of Southey and Moore, contains eight hundred pages of closely printed matter, and includes every thing that Byron wrote in verse. It does honor to the enterprise and taste of the publishers, and will doubtless have a circulation commensurate with its merits. As long as our American booksellers evince a disposition to publish classical works in so beautiful a form, it is a pleasant duty of the press to commend their editions. We cordially wish success to all speculations which imply a confidence in the public taste. It would be needless here to express any opinion of the intellectual or moral character of Byron's poems. Every number of notes by Moore, Scott, Jeffrey, Campbell, Wilson, Rogers, Heber, Milman, Gifford, Ellis, Bridges, and others, which will be found extremely useful and entertaining. Extracts are taken from Byron's own diary, and from the recorders of his conversations, giving an accurate impression of each poem, as regards its time and manner of composition, the feelings from which it sprung, and the opinion he entertained of its reception by the public. Profuse quotations are made from the first draught of each poem, showing how some of the most striking ideas were originally written, and the improvements introduced in their expression by the author's "sober second thoughts." The opinions expressed of the various poems by the leading reviews of the time, including the criticisms of Scott, Jeffrey, Gifford, Heber, and others, are largely quoted. Added to these are numerous notes, explaining allusions, or illustrating images which the common reader might be supposed not to understand. Taken altogether, the edition will enable almost any person to obtain a clear understanding of Byron and his works, without any trouble or inconvenience. There is no other edition which can compare with it in this respect. Many of the notes are exceedingly curious, and if not absolutely new, have been gathered from such a wide variety of sources, as to be novel to a majority of readers. We have been struck with the impression which Byron's energy made upon Dr. Parr, the veteran linguist. After reading the Island, he exclaims-" Byron! the sorcerer! He can do with me according to his will. If it is to throw me headlong upon a desert island; if it is to place me on the summit of a dizzy cliff-his power is the same. I wish he had a friend, or a servant, appointed to the office of the slave, who was to knock every morning at the chamber-door of Philip of Macedon, and remind him he was mortal." From Parr's life we learn that Sardanapalus affected him even more strongly. "In the course of the evening the doctor cried out, 'Have you read Sardanapalus?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Right; and you could n't sleep a wink after it?' 'No.' Right, right-now don't say a word more about it to-night.' The memory of that fine poem seemed to act like a spell of horrible fascination upon him." Perhaps from a few anecdotes like this, we gain a much more vivid impression of the sensation which Byron's poems excited on their first appearance, and their strong hold upon the imagination and passions of the public, than we could obtain from the most elaborate description of their effects. If such was their power upon an old scholar like Parr, what must have been their influence upon younger and more inflammable minds? The editor's preface to Don Juan is no less valuable than entertaining. It contains not merely the opinions expressed of the poem by the reviews and magazines, but those of the newspapers, and enables us to gather the judgment of the English people upon that strange combination of sublimity and ribaldry, sentiment and wit, tenderness and mockery, at the time it first blazed forth from the press. The suppressed dedication of the poem to Southey is also given in full, with all its brutal blackguardism and drunken brillianey. In truth, the volume conveys an accurate impression of all the sides of Byron's versatile nature, and from its very completeness is the less likely to be injurious. There is no edition of his poems which we could more safely commend to the reader, as it exhibits Byron the poet, Byron the scoffer, Byron the roué, in his true colors and real dimensions; and if, after reading it, a person should adopt the old cant about his brilliant rascalities, and the old drivel about his sentimental misanthropy, the fault is in the reader rather than the volume. For our own part we are acquainted with no edition of any celebrated author, equaling this in the remorselessness with which the man is stripped of all the factitious coverings of the poet, and stands out more clearly in his true nature and character. The Life of Henry the Fourth, King of France and Navarre. 2 vols. 12mo. Few kings have been so fortunate as Henry the Fourth in the reputation and good will they have obtained from the people. By democrats as well as monarchists his name is held in a kind of loving veneration. Much of this popularity is doubtless owing to his superiority, in disposition as well as mind, to the ferocious bigotry of his age, and to his great edict of toleration which healed for a time the horrible religious dissensions of France. Apart from his ability, however, his virtues as a king sprung rather from good-nature and benevolence, than from moral or religious principle. His toleration was the result of his indifference as much as his good sense; and he was not a persecutor, because to him neither Catholicism nor Protestantism was of sufficient importance to justify persecution. He was a fanatic only in sensuality; and if he committed crime, it would be rather for a mistress than a doctrine. The last act of his reign, growing out of his impatience in haviug his designs on the Princess of Condé baffled, showed that lust could urge him into an unjust and unprincipled war, where religious superstition would have been totally ineffective. Mr. James's Life of Henry is a careful compilation from the most reliable sources of information, and embodies a large amount of important knowledge. Though far from realizing the higher conditions of historical art, it is more accurate and spirited than the general run of historical works. Mr. James's conscience in the matter of the present book, seems to have been much greater than we might have expected from the king of book-makers. When his history was ready for the press, the French Government commenced publishing the "Lettres Missives" of Henry IV., and Mr. James delayed his book four years, in order that its facts might be verified or increased by comparison with that important publication. His work, therefore, is probably the fullest and most accurate one we possess on the age of which it treats. It is well worthy of an attentive perusal. It abounds in incidents and characters which would make the fortune of a novel, and is an illustration of that kind of truth which is stranger than fiction. The Harpers have issued the work in a tasteful form. singularly rich and suggestive fancy, and a wide variety of information, his use of ornament and allusion is character ized by a taste, an appropriateness, a reserve, which mea of smaller stores rarely practice. As a critic, he is calm, clear, judicious, sympathetic, and making the application of a principle all the more stringent, from his vivid perception of the object of his criticism. The present volume is worthy of its subject, and is more calculated to convey accurate information of the lives, character, and works of American artists, than any other we have seen. It is also exceeding interesting, being full of anecdotes and biographical me moranda of artists who are commonly known only as painters, not as men. In this respect the volume conta much original information, which will be valuable to the future historian of American art. In his criticism, M. Tuckerman evinces knowledge as well as taste; and lị avoiding technical terms, he contrives to render agreeabe and clear what is generally unintelligible to the uninitia:a reader of critiques on paintings. The volume contas, among other sketches and biographies, very interest notices of the lives and works of West, Copley, Stuart Allston, Morse, Durand, W. E. West, Sully, Inman, Cus Weir, Leutze, and Brown. Appleton's Library Manuel: Containing a Catalogue Rai sonne of upwards of Twelve Thousand of the most l portant Works in Every Department of Knowledge, in all Modern Languages. New York; D. Appleton & C 1 vol. 8vo. This is one of the most available and valuable bibi graphical works extant. Its object is indicated by its te Such a book should be in the possession of every stude scholar, book-collector, and librarian. There is hardly subject which can attract the attention of an inquisitiv mind, which is not included in this collection, and the tita of the best books, in different languages, which relate to given in full, with the various editions, and their price would be needless to dilate upon the value of such a wri The compilers deserve the highest credit for the labe intelligence, and expense they have devoted to it. T cost is but one dollar. Sybil Lennard, a Record of Woman's Life. Mrs. Grey is one of the most popular novel writers of a present day, and Sybil Lennard is unquestionably the be of her works. It is published by Mr. T. B. Peterson, : whom the advance sheets were procured from England. Chambers' Miscellany. Part No. 5, of Chamber's interesting Miscellany has be published, and the articles it contains are of the highs order of excellence. Messrs. Zieber & Co. are the Ph Artist Life. By H. T. Tuckerman. New York: D. Appleton delphia publishers. & Co. 1 vol. 12mo. these gems of genius will have a new and peculiar vau We commence their publication in our present number. Mr. Tuckerman is an author whose productions we have POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS OF JOSEPH C. NEAL, ESQ.repeatedly had occasion to notice and to praise. They have several admirable Charcoal Sketches by Mr. Nese have always a finished air, which favorably distinguishes a rich legacy bequeathed expressly to us by our gifted a them from many American publications, the products of lamented friend. Now that the fountain, whose outp mingled talent and haste. Mr Tuckerman does not appearings have so often enriched our pages, is forever com to rush into print, with unformed ideas hastily clad in a loose undress of language-as if the palm of excellence were due to the swiftest runner in the race of expression. His style is clear, polished, graceful, and harmonious, combining a flowing movement with condensation, and free from the tricks and charlatanries of diction. He is not so popular as he would be if he made more noise about his words and thoughts, and called the attention of the public to every felicity of his style or reflection by a pugnacious manner, and a strained expression. Though possessing a THE NEW YORK MIRROR.-This journal is edited w surpassing ability; and its continued and advancing p larity is creditable to the taste of the community in w it is published. Spirited, independent, and liberal, it merely, as its name indicates, reflects the light of the a but shines with a lustre of its own. It is well worthy good fortune. |