The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851. Various
or respectable to attract to herself the eyes of the world—the last thing, in her case, one would think desirable. In the book she has just published—Letters on Man's Nature and Development, by Harriet Martineau and H. G. Atkinson—she avows the most positive and shameless atheism: Christians have had little regard for Pagan deities—she will have as little for theirs! The sun rose yesterday; the fishes still swim in the sea; all the world goes on as before; but she cares not a fig for any deities, Christian or pagan—and don't believe a word of the immortality of the soul! In this new book, of which she is the chief author, the interlocutors place implicit credence in all the phenomena of mesmerism, and they cannot believe there is any thing in man's being or existence or conscience beyond what the senses reach, beyond what the scalpel discloses in the brain. They trace acts and motions and even inclinations to the brain, and deny that there is or can be any thing in contact which can influence it. Cerebrum et præterea nihil is their motto. The book is the apotheosis of that lump of marrow and fibre. And yet this brain, which is so jealously guarded from any spiritual or immaterial influence, is declared to be completely under the direction of any man or woman who may pass a hand, with faith, backwards and forwards over the skull. The extremities of the body—the fingers—send forth and radiate certain electric, or galvanic, or invisible influences, and thus one has full power over another's organization and volition! But as to any influence beyond the sensible world, that Miss Martineau stoutly denies. The following passage is not an uninteresting specimen of this foolish production:
"I observed that under the influence of mesmerism some patients would spontaneously place their hand, or rather the ends of their fingers, on that part of the brain in action; and these were persons wholly ignorant of phrenology. In some cases the hand would pass very rapidly from part to part, as the organs became excited. If the habit of action was encouraged, they would follow every combination with precision: and if one hand would not do they would use both to cover distant parts in action at the same time. I was delighted with their effects; but did not consider them very extraordinary, because I had been accustomed to observe the same phenomena, in a lesser degree, in the ordinary or normal condition. I know some, who on any excitement of their love of approbation, will rub their hand over the organ immediately. Others, I have observed, when irritated, pass the hand over destructiveness. I have observed others hold their hand over the region of the attachments, as they gazed on the object of their affections. I have watched the poet inspired to write with the fingers pressing on the region of ideality, and those listening to music leaning upon the elbow, with the fingers pressing on the organ of music; and I catch myself performing those actions continually, as if I were a puppet moved by strings. You will observe, besides, how the head follows the excited organ. The proud man throws his head back; the fine man carries his head erect; vanity draws the head on one side, with the hat on the opposite side; the intellect presses the head forward; the affections throw it back on the shoulders; and so with the rest."
The Right Honorable Sir John Cam Hobhouse is created a peer with the title of Baron Broughton de Gyfford, in the county of Wilts. His fame in literature has long been lost, in England, in his reputation as a politician; but in this country we know him only as rather a clever man of letters. His most noticeable works that we remember, are, A Journey through Albania, in 1809, Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, The State of Literature in Italy, and two volumes entitled Letters from Paris during the last Reign of Napoleon. His lordship must be in the vicinity of seventy-five years of age.
Of "Junius" there is still another book—though many good libraries contain not so many volumes as have been written upon the subject—and the journals have almost every month some new contributions to the mystery, increasing the accumulation by which the face of the author is hidden. The last work is entitled "Fac-simile Autograph Letters of Junius, Lord Chesterfield and Mrs. C. Dayrolles, showing that the wife of Mr. Solomon Dayrolles was the amanuensis employed in copying the letters of Junius for the printer; with a Postscript to the first Essay on Junius and his Works: by William Cramp, author of 'The Philosophy of Language.'"
The Passions of the Human Soul, by Charles Fourier, translated from the French by the Rev. John Reynell Morell, with critical annotations, a biography of Fourier, and a general introduction, by Hugh Doherty, has been published by Baliere of London (and of Fulton-street, New-York), in two octavos. This is one of Fourier's greatest works, and the attention given to his principles of society in this country will secure for it many readers here.
Thomas Colley Grattan, the author of Highways and By-ways, Jacqueline of Holland, &c., and a few years ago, British Consul at Boston, is coming to this country to give lectures. He will not be very successful.
The Poems Of Alaric A. Watts, lately published in London, in a very sumptuous edition,—though some of the plates have an oldish look—are much commended in nearly all the reviews, and civilly treated even by Fraser, who once described Watts as a fellow "of some talent in writing verses on children dying of colic, and a skill in putting together fiddle-faddle fooleries, which look pretty in print; in other respects of an unwashed appearance; no particular principles, with well-bitten nails, and a great genius for back-biting." Watts some twenty years since had a controversy with Robert Montgomery who wrote Satan, in such a manner as very much to please his hero (a difficult task in biography), and one of the subjects of protracted and sharp discussion concerned the names of the disputants. Watts maintained that the author of "Hell," "Woman," "Satan," &c., was the son of a clown at Bath, named Gomery; and in return Montgomery, who, allowing that as Watts was the lawfully begotten son of a respectable nightman of the name of Joseph Watts, he had a fair title to the patronymic, denied that he had any claim to the gothic appellation of Alaric. "The man's name," said Montgomery, "is Andrew." This was a great while ago, and the quarrels of the time are happily forgotten. Watts is now fifty-seven years old, and age has sobered him, and given him increase of taste, both as to scandal and to writing verses. There are some extremely pretty things in this book (which may be found at Putnam's).
The Stowe MSS., including the unpublished diaries and correspondence of George Grenville, have been bought by Mr. Murray. The diary reveals, it is said, the secret movements of Lord Bute's administration, the private histories of Wilkes and Lord Chatham, and the features of the early madness of George III.; while the correspondence exhibits Wilkes in a new light, and reveals (what the Stowe papers were expected to reveal) something of moment about Junius. The whole will form about four volumes, and will appear among the next winter's novelties.
The copyrights, steel plates, wood-cuts, stereotype plates, &c. of Walter Scott's works, and of his life, by Lockhart, were to be sold in London, by auction, on the 26th March. This property belonged to the late Mr. Cadell of Edinburgh. The copyright of "Waverly" has five years more to run, and that of the works generally does not terminate for twenty years. This is the largest copyright property ever sold.
Mr. Layard's fund having been exhausted, a subscription was lately set on foot for him in London, and its success we hope will enable him to prosecute his investigations with renewed vigor. He has, we hear, entirely recovered from his late indisposition, and needs but a supply of money to recommence his operations with renewed vigor.
Henry Alford, a very pleasing poet, a profound scholar, and most excellent man, is at the present time vicar of Wymeswold, in Leicestershire, England. He was born in London in 1810, and in 1832 graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was afterwards Fellow. In 1835 he was married to his cousin, to whom are written some of his most charming effusions. At Easter in 1844 they lost one of their four children, and the bereavement seems to have induced the composition of many pieces full of tenderness and of remarkable beauty, which appear in the collection of his poems. In 1841 he was elected one of the lecturers in the University of Cambridge, and he is now, we believe, Examiner in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and Logic in the University of London. He has published, besides his poetical works, which appeared in two volumes, some years since, several volumes of sermons, a work entitled Chapters on the Poets of Ancient Greece, written for the Nottingham mechanics; a volume of University Lectures; a work intended as a regular course of exercises in classical composition; and the Greek Testament, with a critically revised text, digest of various readings, &c., in which he has displayed sound learning and judgment. He is also editor of a very complete collection of the "Works of Donne", published some years ago at