This always tells us that laughter is connected with a set of emotions which mankind by their various languages and by their actions, have ever treated as disinterested-non-selfish. How quickly one fraternizes with the good laughers among his travelling companions, so soon as opportunity offers for a development of their quality. Roar upon roar, shake upon shake, from you and them, how fast these movements drive the crossing shuttles of sympathy, till, before the day closes, you find the bonds of good-fellowship closely woven. Selfishness skulks, isolates itself, is antagonistic, introspective. Laughter is frank, contagious, embracing, reproductive, potent in the cultivation of sociality-the more the merrier. Then mark with what simple, open sounds it expresses itself-ha! ha!; ho! ho! hi! hi! no amboges, no subtile, evasive notes.* As for infernal smiles and grins, such as we read of in novels, they are misnomers. I do not believe that Clootz or any of his family is in the habit of indulging in laughter; they have no cause, poor things. The facial contractions and extensions thus denominated are at best simulations, and—except that hypocrisy is a testimony to the worth of the reality stimulated, as parodies prove merit in the originals-I have nothing to do with them.

* Ihrer Natur nach steigt die Frende nach oben, offnet den Mund weit und spricht in den offensten Vokalen, am leibsten in A. J. oder Ei, wie wir in der ganzen Schopfung, an Kindern, Schafen, Eseln, Stieren und Betrumkenen wahrnehmen konnen. TIECK (Gestiefelter Kater.)

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

SHANDY MCGUIRE; OR, TRICKS UPON TRAVELLERS; being a story of the North of Ireland. By Paul Peppergrass, Esq. Edward Dunigan & Brother, 151 Fulton-street.

This is a story of intense interest, descriptive of life in poor old Ireland, which always awakens the sympathies of the democrat the wide world over. There is a heart-winning jollity, and a poetic association, discoverable even when contemplating the miseries of that long-suffering people; and the volume before us is fraught with interest to all. The style of its production is such as to reflect the greatest credit on the popular publisher, Mr. Dunigan. Ireland, and the redress of Ireland's wrongs, must yet form the leading feature in the history of the present century, fraught as it is with great events and vast consequences. The British Empire has long since reached its culminating point, and in its blood-stained career, it is now pausing and receding. The voice of wronged humanity rises up for judgment, while a guilty aristocracy seeks through bloody means, incompatible with the spirit of the age, to prolong its feeble hold upon an enlightened people. A timeworn and trembling grasp of tottering despotism upon awakening democracy, must soon be shaken off through the vivifying influence of spreading republicanism, and the dismembered empire must recognize in the despised republic the leading empire of the commercial world.

PAST AND PRESENT-CHARTISM, AND SARTOR RESARTUS. By Thomas Carlyle. Harper Brothers.

There can be no doubt of the growing popularity of the qauint style of Carlyle. The singular clearness and force with which a thought is presented to the reader, and the startling grandeur with which new views open as the author is followed, leave, to those

we first saw Field in Jeremy Diddler, shot out at little intervals a series of sharp, ringing yells, which I think saved him from exploding in fragments on that occasion. Giggles, simpers, cackles, sickly smiles, and worst of all, those of pretended dignity, whose starch is sour, where the subject would have you believe (unless you are a simpleton, of course you won't,) that he is too deeply absorbed in important thought to more than half yield, should bar cultivation of acquaintance or further intimacy.

Aristotle says that "all laughter springs from emotions of superiority." Begging the pardon of that wise heathen, of Hobbes, and of other unwise Christian philosophers of the selfish school who have said the same, he and they are mistaken. Cold derision may spring from that source; but there is your corrision, sympathetic and congratulatory; your subrision auxilliary, benevolently encouraging, that well up warm from the south side of the heart; your quasi, tentative rision, that springs to the poor suitor's face from hoping humility, and the following grateful smile, that falls like heaven's sunlight on the heart of the grantor of the suit, making him more blessed than the other-let alone your smile sycophantic, which must arise from very dirty emotions. When timid hope is changed to full fruition—as in the mother when the long-lost child is found-then rise mingled emotions, and from their contention a smile, whose

"Plenteous joys,

Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves

In drops of sorrow."

There is an old gentleman with whom I have watched many nights during the past year; he suffers much, at times fearfully, and when I bring him anything to alleviate the paroxysms of pain, through the old wrinkled features all distorted with agony there breaks a smile of thankfulness, beautiful as the pure ghost-flower breaking through the dead leaves of the wood-soil; then there is the smile on Devotion's face beaming with reflected radiance from the Golden City that she gazes on; and the smile with which Faith greets the coming of the good messenger, the Angel of Death; and one I used to see mantling over the transparent marble-white countenance of a sick child, as if he were already answering to the welcome of his fellows in their kingdom. But let us see if the more common laughs, and such as your selfish philosophers would be most likely to select and anatomize for the purpose of displaying the selfish skeleton they clothe, are not after all free from the charge brought against them. These theorists indeed charge the same against all acts and emotions; nor do they always mean by selfishness that basest form of it alone, which we commonly so designate.

When you see a Jemmy Twitcher caught by his coat flaps on the spikes of a garden wall, and dangling like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth, you roar with laugh ter, and rightly-Uncle Toby would. You laugh, not at the misfortune of the man, but at the extremely odd contrast between the nominal Jemmy Twitcher of your imagination and the pensile Jemmy of the spikes-the tendency to laugh is a necessary product, accordant with mental laws of the perception of the incongruity. Now if James had descended safely, with a prey of your choicest fruits in his pockets, and you had discovered him, you would doubtless be angry and report him to the nearest justice; but as matters hang, unless you are a harsher man than most, your vexation is tempered with a feeling of actual benevolence, you will help him down and dismiss him with a light reproof. You cannot laugh over and punish him at the same time. Shrewd schoolboys know this, and know that a poor, droll excuse is as valid as a dull, good one; the schoolmasters recognize the principle and bite hard their lips to avoid the inconsistency of feruling amid smiles.

When philosophers get astride of a theory, and I do not see but they incline to it as well since Bacon's time as before; if it takes them to the devil, it is quite proper that they should go, but we commoners shall do better to keep in the pleasanter ways of common sense.

This always tells us that laughter is connected with a set of emotions which mankind by their various languages and by their actions, have ever treated as disinterested—non-selfish. How quickly one fraternizes with the good laughers among his travelling companions, so soon as opportunity offers for a development of their quality. Roar upon roar, shake upon shake, from you and them, how fast these movements drive the crossing shuttles of sympathy, till, before the day closes, you find the bonds of good-fellowship closely woven. Selfishness skulks, isolates itself, is antagonistic, introspective. Laughter is frank, contagious, embracing, reproductive, potent in the cultivation of sociality—the more the merrier. Then mark with what simple, open sounds it expresses itself-ha! ha!; ho! ho! hi! hi! no amboges, no subtile, evasive notes. As for infernal smiles and grins, such as we read of in novels, they are misnomers. I do not believe that Clootz or any of his family is in the habit of indulging in laughter; they have no cause, poor things. The facial contractions and extensions thus denominated are at best simulations, and-except that hypocrisy is a testimony to the worth of the reality stimulated, as parodies prove merit in the originals-I have nothing to do with them.

* Ihrer Natur nach steigt die Frende nach oben, offnet den Mund weit und spricht in den offensten Vokalen, am leibsten in A. J. oder Ei, wie wir in der ganzen Schopfung, an Kindern, Schafen, Eseln, Stieren und Betrumkenen wahrnehmen konnen. TIECK (Gestiefelter Kater.)

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

SHANDY MCGUIRE; OR, TRICKS UPON TRAVELLERS; being a story of the North of Ireland. By Paul Peppergrass, Esq. Edward Dunigan & Brother, 151 Fulton-street.

This is a story of intense interest, descriptive of life in poor old Ireland, which always awakens the sympathies of the democrat the wide world over. There is a heart-winning jollity, and a poetic association, discoverable even when contemplating the miseries of that long-suffering people; and the volume before us is fraught with interest to all. The style of its production is such as to reflect the greatest credit on the popular publisher, Mr. Dunigan. Ireland, and the redress of Ireland's wrongs, must yet form the leading feature in the history of the present century, fraught as it is with great events and vast consequences. The British Empire has long since reached its culminating point, and in its blood-stained career, it is now pausing and receding. The voice of wronged humanity rises up for judgment, while a guilty aristocracy seeks through bloody means, incompatible with the spirit of the age, to prolong its feeble hold upon an enlightened people. A timeworn and trembling grasp of tottering despotism upon awakening democracy, must soon be shaken off through the vivifying influence of spreading republicanism, and the dismembered empire must recognize in the despised republic the leading empire of the commercial world.

PAST AND PRESENT-CHARTISM, AND SARTOR RESARTUS. By Thomas Carlyle. Harper Brothers.

There can be no doubt of the growing popularity of the qauint style of Carlyle. The singular clearness and force with which a thought is presented to the reader, and the startling grandeur with which new views open as the author is followed, leave, to those

accustomed to his manner, most agreeable impressions. The present volume of the Messrs. Harpers combines in a convenient shape three of the best of his productions, illustrated with a fine engraving of the author.

STORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. By General Charles William Vane, Marquis of Londonderry. New edition revised, with considerable additions, &c. &c. Harper Brothers, New-York.

WHEN publishers give a book to the world, it is, we conceive, their imperative duty, to furnish the reader with such information concerning the book itself, as will prepare him for its perusal, unfold to him the spirit in which it was written, and forewarn him in a measure against any bias or bearing peculiar to its author. This is a duty too much neglected in our country, particularly as regards American re-publications of British books. For instance, the work before us, to judge by its title-page, purports to be an American edition, with revisions and additions, of a "Story of the Peninsular War," written by General Vane, Marquis of Londonderry. But there are evidences to the contrary inherent to the work itself, and we are therefore left to our own conclusions.

The author, a British nobleman, held at the beginning of the war a commission in a regiment of cavalry, probably under the military code then prevailing, the stern code whose wholesome restraints he praises so highly, which provided that no one should "hold a commission without the elements of education," nor an ensigncy "till he had attained sixteen." He joined the army under Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Arthur Wellesley, with the reinforcement under Sir John Moore, shortly after the battle of Vimiero. It is at this period of the narrative that the egotistical "I" makes its appearance, and it is to this portion of the work must our attention be chiefly directed; what precedes is merely a view of the British army, an account of the Revolution in Spain, strictures a la Walter Scott upon the ambition and duplicity of Bonaparte, and a short sketch of the invasion of Portugal by Junot. Throughout these opening chapters, British honor and integrity are lauded to the skies, and French rapaciousness and cupidity are stigmatized in a very edifying manner, and precisely in the strain in which the newspapers of both countries daily laud their own measures and men and abuse their neighbors.

Now this style of writing is, doubtless, orthodox enough in its proper place, but to us it conveys no light. We think it very natural that a dashing young officer of hussars, who has seen "some service," should prepare, upon his return home, a compilation of the diary he kept during his short campaign, and give it to the press; nor would we feel disposed to judge severely any production of the kind; we should expect to meet with many errors, many misconceptions, many camp rumors adopted as authentic truths; and if it chaneed that the warrior's pen had too much of the sword about it, and that the pas sions of the battle field or mess room had followed the writer into his study and tainted his narrative, we would still deal leniently with the noble author, and praise a mental effort somewhat unusual with men of his class. But when it is sought, in after years, to give to such a publication a new importance-when a pamphlet justly dead is resuscitated, grows up into a book, and is thrust before us in an American dress, and held on the fount by an "Editor"-the original mitigating ciscumstances avail no longer, but rise in judg ment against the work itself.

one.

We profess the utmost abhorrence for bigotry of any kind, whether of race, sect or party; and it has not been our misfortune within late years to meet anything more bigoted than the "Story of the Peninsular War." Not only are the actions of foreigners underrated and the exploits of the British raised to the epic power, but the writer remains partial and bigoted as between his own countrymen. Certain leaders are selected for obloquy and censure, others for unqualified incense. At the battle of Vimiero, poor Sir Harry Burrard is conveniently kept in the back ground to glorify Sir Arthur, and conveniently brought into play again when it is necessary to exculpate Sir Arthur of the reproach of inactivity, the responsibility of which remains with Sir Hugh Dalrymple, if any In the account of the beautiful retreat that ended with the battle of Corunna, every page teems with peevish disapprobation of the conduct of Moore The young officer growls at every line like a midshipman taking to task a grey-headed Commodore. It never occurred to his mind that Sir John Moore had a further object in view, and that by his masterly retreat, he was actually accomplishing as much as could have resulted from a victory. Hear the philosophical Napier on this subject: "That Spain being in her extremity. Sir J. Moore succored her, and in the hour of weakness, intercepted the blow that was descending to crush her, no man of candor and honesty can deny. For what troops, what preparation, what courage, what capacity was there in the South to have resisted even for an instant, the progress of a man who in ten days, and in the depth of winter, crossing the snowy ridge of the Carpentinos, had travelled two hundred miles of hostile country, and transported 50,000 men from Madrid to Astorga in a shorter time

than a Spanish post would have taken to travel the same distance." But the noble writer has our leave for assailing the fame of British genius to his heart's content. We care but little what leaders are thrust into the back ground of his picture, and shrouded in chiaro oscura, for the purpose of throwing into bolder relief the gaunt figure of the Iron Duke. There are other misrepresentations for which we must call him to an account.

A great flourish is sounded about the battle of Rolica-meaning, we presume, the affair of Roriça. Now we can show by British authorities, this affair to have been a splendid military operation on the part of the French general, who succeeded in holding in check thrice his own number of Englishmen, besides a large Portuguese force, during three days of hard fighting, making good his retreat and operating his junction in the face of a superior foe. The only symptom of esteem which the author exhibits towards that gallant foe consists in a misnomer, whereby the democratic Laborde is ennobled into De Laborde. And lest some show of fairness might remain, the "Editor" of the Marquis adds an unblushing note, averring that "a British general" gave the word to halt, thereby saving the enemy from destruction.

In his account of the battle of Vimiero, he states, correctly enough, the French force to have been about 12,000 men, although he greatly exaggerates their loss. But he nowhere troubles himself about giving the numbers of the British; they had 16,000 fighting men, besides Trant's Portuguese, and two British regiments under Beresford; the latter, we believe, were not engaged. But, in the whole course of this book, whenever any fact is slurred over or omitted, or only alluded to, we may be sure, on consulting authorities, to find the truth unfavorable to the British. On the other hand, in this and other battles, he exhausts the reader's patience with long, tiresome details about the encounter of some particular regiments, the charge of some body of cavalry, and the valor of “our brave fellows," or our gallant "70th," &c. Now these details may and may not be true; some such incidents occur in every battle, and we can remember how complacently, when at school, we used to invent and describe to the death, circumstances precisely similar in our compositions. But besides that in the work before us, these sickening details are out of all proportion to the extent of serious information conveyed, we have noticed that the author's battle-items are invariably in favor of “our brave fellows."

The next piece of twaddle which we meet with is the passage in relation to the convention of Cintra. And here the author's ignorance and that of his editor are alike inexcusable. Documents there are in swarms concerning that transaction, and it was their own fault if they did not draw from those sources to correct such crude impressions as are likely to be received by a young officer, setting down in his journal the rumor of the day as he receives it.

Kellerman, one of the most upright officers in the French army, is charged-though in cautious terms-with falsehood, for having stated, pending the negotiation of that treaty, that he had no power to “conclude a treaty," and afterwards producing a written document which authorized him to act at his own discretion. Now if the noble soldier of one campaign, if the noble writer of one book, had possessed even that limited amount of knowledge in diplomatic matters which he so complacently displays in his warlike criticisms, he would have been aware that nothing is so usual and justifiable in diplomacy as to give an agent full powers, yet bind him by a secret letter of instructions. Indeed, 'reaties have been signed by plenipotentiaries, which have been afterwards disavowed by the sovereign, on the ground that secret instructions had been disregarded. Kellerman therefore, might very well possess within the lining of his coat, a written document investing him with full powers, and yet, in fact, not have power to conclude a treaty. Indeed we feel certain that no such power had been given him, for Junot required delay.

By the way, since we have mentioned Junot, we might as well state that we think him unfairly dealt with in this work. The author scarcely seems to discover anything to praise in his character. Junot was the very impersonification of a soldier. When the emperor's peremptory order to invade Portugal reached him, he was in the worst possible condition to obey. Some 25,000 raw conscripts and boys from every corner of the empire composed his army, but without a moment's hesitation, he obeyed; he knew nothing of the country before him, of the disposition of its inhabitants, or of the resources of the nation he went to subjugate; but still he obeyed. With admirable tact, he chose the least accessible part of the frontier, led his army through passes and gorges the most impracticable, and arrived before Abrantes a most unexpected and fearful guest. Such was the celerity of his motions that when he reached Lisbon, only about 2000 worn out grenadiers attended his person, the rest of his army remained straggling in his rear. But Junot never flinched; and when on his return from the mouth of the Tagus, he met a detachment of Portuguese soldiers sent to attack him, he boldly ordered them to escort him back to Lisbon, and they obeyed. Thus Junot conquered a kingdom without striking a blow, by the mere strength of obstinacy, pretty much in the same way as Governor Peter Stuyvesant defended Gotham for three days.

In the negotiation of the treaty of Cintra, Junot exhibited a degree of diplomatic skill