York: Harper & Brothers. and New class and his lady, and had been brought from have not the time nor means to institute. The China by Admiral Hardwick. Several embroid- internals marks of accuracy, however, which eries of a more archeological character, but less strike the eye at once, are quite satisfactory, attractive in richness of color, excited the curiosity we have great pleasure in calling to this book the of the visitors, especially some remarkable speci- attention of professors and students, as well as of mens of early needlework from Compton Verney, intelligent readers generally.-N. Y. Recorder. sent by Lord Willoughby de Broke. The remarkChalmers' Posthumous Works. Vol. 8. able collections of ancient watches, brought by Octavius Morgan, Esq., M. P., and Sir Charles Fellowes, attracted universal interest. The rapidThis volume, in the valuable series of Posthuity with which this rare assemblage of varied mous Works of Dr. Chalmers, edited by his sonremains of the olden time was brought together in-law, Dr. Hanna, includes the remaining porrendered the preparation of a printed catalogue tion of his Institutes of Theology, viz., the Subimpracticable, but one will be given, with illustra-ject-matter, and the Extent of the Gospel Remedy, tions, in the volume of transactions of the meeting. with supplementary Lectures on the Trinity. The form and the scope of this work, and its great value, we sufficiently indicated in our notice of the preceding volume.-N. Y. Recorder. NEW BOOKS. The Whale and his Captors; or, the Whaleman's Adventures and the Whale's Biography, as gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the "Com-has just been published by the Harpers, which "A Copious and Critical English-Latin Lexicon" modore Preble." By Rev. HENRY T. CHEE- must supersede every similar work now in use in VER. With engravings. 16mo. pp. 314. Har- schools and colleges throughout the United States, per & Brothers. as it has already done in England. One very great defect in the systems of classical This is a very handsomely printed volume, and contains a generous number of exceedingly spir-instruction pursued in the United States, has been the neglect of Latin and Greek composition-an ited and taking illustrations. But these are the exercise which is properly made the chief instruleast excellences of the book. It is full of infor- ment in the acquisition of modern languages, and the mation on Whales and Whaling, communicated un-propriety of which in studying ancient languages der attractive forms, and cannot fail of the happy is no less decided and apparent. Within a few moral effect of both winning sympathy for the years past a marked improvement has been made sailor, and raising the sailor himself to higher and better thoughts. It is a book for the land and the sea, for the parlor and the forecastle, and will do good in both. Our own copy is already sadly soiled by constant use, and we have had it scarcely ten days. We hope Mr. Cheever has "a few more of the same sort left."-N. Y. Recorder. in this respect; and we believe it is still in progress. The practice of Greek and Latin composischools of the country, and the good results that tion has been introduced into nearly all the classical have been found to attend it everywhere, must contribute powerfully to its still more general introduction. The increased devotion of schools to this branch of education, has rendered absolutely indispensable a better Lexicon, for translating English into Latin, than has hitherto been used. A System of Ancient and Medieval Geography, for Prof. Anthon, under whose editorial supervision the use of Schools and Colleges. By CHARLES this work has been reprinted, says that "We have ANTHON, LL. D. New York: Harper & Broth-had no work in the English language at all deservers. 8vo. pp. 769. ing of being compared with it ;" and he expresses The information on the subjects embraced in the confident hope that it will entirely supersede this book, which the student could gather, if at been used. Language so emphatic as this, and from the "wretched compilations" which have hitherto all, only by wide reading in a variety of direc- a source of so high authority, certainly renders tions, is here brought together in compact form, needless any commendation from us. The work and available for instant use. We have rarely has been compiled, by years of close and unremitted met a book, whether for purposes of instruction labor, from the German-Latin Dictionary of Dr. C. or reference, more needed than this, or one which, F. Georges, with the aid of a great number of other in our view, will be more welcomed and approved. Esmond Riddle and Thomas Kerchever Arnold, valuable works from various sources-by Joseph The study of History without the accompanying both of whom are widely known as eminent English study of Geography, must necessarily be imperfect, indeed, hardly deserves the name. There has been a deplorable deficiency, in this respect, both in our schools and colleges, and among more advanced students. We cannot but hope that the appearance of this volume will contribute to the correction of the evil. The verification of the book by reference to authorities must be the work of long use, or of special examinations which we scholars, and as having performed the most signal services to the cause of classical education. The American edition has been prepared under the direction of Prof. Drisler, one of the most accurate and accomplished philologists in the country, and is introduced, as already stated, under the editorial supervision of Dr. Anthon. It is printed in a single, thick, compact, elegant volume, in a style uniform with that of the other similar works issued by the Harpers.-N. Y. Courier. POETRY.-Resignation, 64.-The Dead Child; One Saint More, 89.-The Old Pew, 93. SHORT ARTICLES.- Evangelical Melodies, 64.-Queen Elizabeth's Hair, &c., 94.-New Books, 95. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of | Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. 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The volumes are published quarterly, each volume containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in eighteen months. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1848. Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 296.-19 JANUARY, 1850. From the Westminster Review. Las Papillotos (The Curl-papers) de Jasmin, Coiffur, de las Académios d'Agen et de Bordéou. Agen: Prosper Noubel, 1843-1845. EVERYBODY has heard of the Troubadours, and most people have some notion of their own as to who and what they were. These notions, however, are, we suspect, rarely definite, and still more rarely just. Wonderful, on comparison, would be the discrepancy between them-amusing would be the variety in its conceptions, which, on this as on many other questions, that respectable class termed "well-informed people" would exhibit. A few learned men are tolerably acquainted with the subject, and know the rank in the history of literature to which the troubadours are entitled, but we believe they are few indeed. Most people associate with the name of these minstrels only confused and misplaced ideas of ladye-loves, bowers, a peculiar garb, the dark ages, and guitars. Their works are less known than those of the Fathers. The Druids do not possess a more dim and shadowy existence in the imagination of the mass. Many have no further acquaintance with the matter than that, like a bandit, a pilgrim, or a Jew, a troubadour makes an excellent character for a fancy ball. But however different may be the opinions entertained on other points connected with the troubadours, on one at least there would probably be all but unanimity; nearly all, we are persuaded, would agree in asserting that the time of those worthies is long since gone by, and that it is centuries since the last of the tuneful brethren sang his latest lay. Men, neverthless, often coincide only in their errors, and this we proclaim to be one. The golden age of the troubadours may be past, but the race is not extinct; time may have modified the externals, but the spirit remains. For, dwelling in their very country, and singing in their very language, differing in short from his predecessors in little more than this, that he far excels the best of them in genius, there exists at this present day a real living troubadour; his name is Jasmin, and we have seen him. and that it is, in fact, nearly unintelligible to those who know no French but French of Paris. Yet, notwithstanding this serious disadvantage, the sterling excellence of his poetry has won a way for it; and if, with the mass, it is not everywhere so popular as on the banks of the Garonne, its beauties have universally been appreciated, at least, by the more competent and discerning. The most distinguished critics of the capital itself, not always too ready to discover or to recognize provincial merit, hailed him with enthusiasm, when, rambling like a true minstrel, he appeared amongst them reciting his verses; and in the difficult saloons of a city, where unaided genius to be successful must be genius indeed, the Gascon bard conquered for himself a fame of which any man might well be proud. Ampère, Charles Nodier, Saint-Beuve, and Lamartine were among the loudest in their' praises; the last, indeed, went so far as to say that Jasmin was "the truest and greatest poet of the age;" and the exaggerated terms of this testimony must not be allowed to detract from its real value. As for his native Gascony, where the language in which Jasmin writes is not only well understood, but, as being now the patois of the people, is to them peculiarly expressive and heart-touching, he is there held in universal honor. His countrymen of that province are intensely proud of him. He is to them what Burns is to the Scottish peasantry, only, he meets with his honors in his lifetime. Fêtes and banquets await him when he visits any of their towns, multitudes crowd to hear him recite his poems, his progress from place to place is a perpetual triumph, and the unabating enthusiasm that everywhere greets him shows that the fame which Toulouse, the city of Clemence Isaure, acknowledged years ago by presenting him with its golden laurel, has since been successfully maintained. Agen is a small town prettily situated on the reedy Garonne. In its principal square is to be found a small shop, the front of which, shaded by an overhanging blind of blue cloth, bears the legend, "Jasmin. Coiffeur de jeunes gens." For, the truth must be told, "the truest and greatest poet of the age" keeps a shop, and is a hair-dresser Can a The poetry of this singular man is not known in this country as it deserves to be. A short notice of it, indeed, appeared some years ago in a-the fingers that sweep the lyre handle also the weekly periodical, and one or two of his smaller pieces have even been translated into English; but we are persuaded, that by a great majority, even of those best acquainted with modern French literature, the poet of Agen has never been heard of. In France itself his reputation is not so widely or so universally spread as is that of many of his contemporaries much his inferiors in merit; nor, indeed, is it wonderful that it should be so, when we consider that the language in which he writes is now looked on only as the patois of a province, scissors, and scraps of verses serve to test the heat of curling-irons. Can such things be? man who is a hair-dresser hope for immortality? Has he any right to bear up against the prejudices to which he must feel himself obnoxious? That ploughmen and shepherds may tune their pipes and sing, we can all readily understand; idyls and georgics come naturally from their occupations; but a hair-dresser-with all due respect to the worshipful company of barbers-seems inexorably forbidden to make any acquaintance with the muse, the charivaris common in the country; but none of these effusions have come down to us-the poor tailor-satirist rests mute and inglorious. Though a thin, weak child, yet “nourished by good milk, and nestling in a warm cradle stuffed with lark's feathers," Jasmin grew, "just as if he had been the son of a king." At the age of seven he was strong enough to accompany his father to the charivaris, whither he went with a horn in his "bare to us there is no profession so prosaic as a barber's, and for a poet to be found among its members is indeed a prodigy. But Jasmin is that hand, a paper cap on his head, and seemingly prodigy. The little room behind his shop is full much pride of position in his heart. But the of gifts, presented to him in homage of his genius; admirers in every social and intellectual rank have greatest delight of his childhood was to go sent their offerings, and kings are among the con- in the willow-islands of the Garonne, with a party foot and barehead" to gather sticks for his parents tributors. He writes after his name, "Member of some score of his companions. To this day it of the Academies of Agen and Bordeaux." enchants him to remember how, as the clock his button-hole he wears the ribbon of the legion struck noon, the cry would arise, à l'illo, arnits !— of honor-in his case, at least, bestowed upon no to the island, friends!" How they then set off, unworthy grounds. And the little table beside his counter is covered with favorable reviews by critics in that country; how, their fagots and their work singing, L'agnel que m'as dounat, a favorite song whose judgment is stamped with authority, minfinished an hour before nightfall, they spent that gled with complimentary letters from correspond-time in swinging upon the pliant branches, and how ents whose approbation is indeed high praise. All these Jasmin makes no ostentation either of ex At hibiting or of concealing; he has not been spoiled by the flattery he has received; but he is conscious of his own merits, and disdains the mock modesty it would be affectation to assume. In appearance he is a fine, manly-looking fellow, in manners he is hearty and simple. From the first prepossessing, he gains upon you at every moment, till when he is fairly launched into the recital of one of his poems, and his rich voice does justice to the harmonious Gascon in which they nearly all are written, the animation and feeling he discovers become contagious; your admiration kindles; cold as you may generally be, you are involved in his ardor. You forget the shop in which you stand; all idea of his being a hair-dresser vanishes; you rise with him into his superior world, and experience in a way you will never forget, the power exercised by a true poet pouring forth his living thoughts in his own verses. Amongst Jasmin's productions is a piece entitled Mous Soubenis-My Souvenirs. It appeared in 1832. Nothing can give a better idea at once of the man and of the poet than this work; for it not only yields us a retrospect of his life, but exhibits in a peculiar degree the mixture of pathos and humor, of playfulness and passion, which distinguishes him. We shall, therefore, make the acquaintance of the modern troubadour by means of this autobiography. We translate word for word when we quote in prose. Aged and broken, the other century had only a couple of years more to pass upon earth, when, at the corner of an old street, in a house where dwelt more than one rat, on Thursday in Shrovetide, behind the door, at the hour when they toss pancakes, of a hunchbacked father and a lame mother, was born a baby, and that baby was I. The hunchbacked father was a tailor; and, though he could not read, he too was a poet, of a much lower degree, however, than his son. He composed burlesque and occasional couplets for they then returned home again, "thirty voices bundles of wood danced on thirty heads." chanting the same air and chorus, while thirty All his amusements, however, were not so innocent. He was a sad robber of orchards; nor does he seem even yet reformed in principle, for his mouth evidently still waters at the recollection of his exploits-— Over the hedge and over the wall, But, amid the gayety and carelessness of Jasmin's early years, there was a care which cast a gloom over his happiest moments; and it arose from a cause which does not usually much sadden a child. The future poet had an eager thirst for education; the poverty of his parents did not admit of his receiving it. The thought of school, and of his being debarred from it, constantly haunted him ; his poor mother would whisper the word to his grandfather, and then look wistfully at her boy; but there was no help, they had not the means, and his singular desire of knowledge could not be gratified. He could only wish. The family had evidently a hard battle to sustain. Jasmin's childhood was one of hunger and privation. We find him afterwards alluding to his forced fasts, in some humorous verses addressed "To a Curé of Marmande, who at a great dinner wished to make him observe Lent." We think we hear some troubadour of Raymond's court discharging his pleasantry at the penance-pronoun ing St. Dominic, or some of his monk companions. Crics our abbé, "Sinners all, Fast, and of your ways repent! Sinners, oh! to be forgiven, Me your words in no way touch; You and all the curés know Nothing of the kind I owe. But even hunger cannot sink the buoyancy natural to childhood. Jasmin was always merry. Every season had its own pleasures, cheap and natural, but not the less enjoyed. In winter, for instance, they consisted in listening to dreadful stories told by an old woman. things he had never dreamed of before: that the severe looking woman, who came every morning with an iron pot, bore in it to his grandmother, "sick though still not old," the soup of charity; that the old wallet was what his grandfather used to carry from farmhouse to farmhouse, seeking the scanty doles of his former friends; that no old man ever died in their house, but "that as soon as they took to crutches they were sent to the hospital." So it had been from father to son. "Paoure Pepy!-poor grandfather." 66 One day, however-a bright day for him-his Jacques," mother entered the house joyfully. said she, "Jacques, my son, you shall go to school! Your cousin the schoolmaster takes you for nothing." Six months afterwards the boy could read he was diligent and had a good memory-six more and he assisted the priest at mass-six more, and as a chorister he struck up the Tantum ergo -six more and he entered the seminary gratui What delight and what pain I felt when she recounted the Ogre and little Tom Thumb," when she painted a hundred ghosts, with the noise of a hundred chains, in an old ruin, when she rehearsed the "Sorcerer" or 66 Bluebeard," or described the "Loup-garou" howling in the street. Half dead with fear, I dared not breathe, and when, as mid-tously-six more and he was expelled from it with night sounded, I returned home, it seemed as if shame on his face and curses on his head. And sorcerers and loups-garour were always at my this, too, was in the very moment of his first great heels. triumph. He had gained a prize-it was only an old cassock-but it was still a prize. His mother came and saw it; full of joy was that poor moth So much for imaginary terrors. The actual things of life and their stern reality were soon forced upon him in a way that left its trace for-er, and between her kisses she said to him, ever. "Poor thing! you have a good right to learn; It was a Monday. At play with his companions, he was their king and they formed his for, thanks to you, they send us every Tuesday a escort. In the midst of his reign he sees two loaf of bread, and this year times are so bad, that God knows it is welcome.” Jasmin, very proud, porters approach, bearing an old man seated on a willow chair. They come nearer and nearer, near promised repeatedly that he would become a grand enough at last for him to distinguish his grand-savant, and his mother went away radiant with father. He throws himself round his poor rela-joy. His father, it was arranged, was to lay his tive's neck, and asks him anxiously, and in wonder, professional hands on the cassock and alter it to what ails him, why he has left home, where he is going. "To the workhouse, my son," replies the weeping old man. "Acòs aqui que lous Jansemins môron-it is there the Jasmins die. He embraced me," continued Jasmin, "and was a dove-cot above her. He mounted the ladder one, the boy's size. But that vestment Jasmin was never destined to wear. He fell, both literally and figuratively. "The devil, that instigator of evil," led him, it seems, near a ladder, at the top of which a plump servant maid was perched, occarried away, shutting his blue eyes-five days cupied-type of innocence-in feeding pigeons in afterwards my grandfather was no more." Then, for the first time, the boy felt what poverty really This event struck deep into his mind; the recollection of it has since been constantly present to him, and on one occasion, at least, it exercised a salutary influence on his fortunes. When, at last, more prosperous days came, he found great satisfaction in making a bonfire of the old willow chair in which his forefathers, "all the Jasmins," had been carried to their almshouse death-bed. With this incident the first canto closes. two, three, four steps, Kitty turned and uttered a So wicked and so young! As Heaven is my guard, carnival! The second begins with an inventory of the family furniture, in which figure, among other things, "three old beds in ruins; six old curtains, which the wind from the crannies would have caused to belly out like sails, if they had not been eaten by time and rats into the semblance of Shut up in his cell, Jasmin was far from being sieves; a sideboard frequently subjected to threat miserable. He had, it seems, visions of lovely of bailiff-it was the only thing worth seizing-women, who, and an old wallet hanging in a corner.' He had not before remarked the scantiness of their possessions, but his eyes were now opened. He saw how slender were his parents' means, and he learned Sweet consolers of disgrace, |