Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. By HENRY WADS- WORTH LONGfellow. 3. Locke Amsden, or the Schoolmaster 4. The Life and Journals of Samuel Shaw 5. Nichol's Contemplations on the Solar System NOTE TO ARTICLE V. ON PRISON DISCIPLINE. In the citation from Mr. Gray's book on our 181st page, "The prisoners take turns in cleaning the corridors every The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honorable 1. The History of Rome, from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine. By B. G. NIE- BUHR. In a Series of Lectures, including an Intro- ductory Course on the Sources and Study of Roman History. Edited by LEONHARD SCHMITZ, Ph. D. 2. A History of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Death of Commodus, A. D. 192. By DR. III. LAMARTINE'S HISTORY OF THE GIRONDISTS History of the Girondists; or Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution, from Un- An Autobiographical Memoir of SIR JOHN BARROW, Bart., late of the Admiralty; including Reflections, Observations, and Reminiscences at Home and 348 1. Gallus or Roman Scenes of the Time of Au- gustus; with Notes and Excursus illustrative of the Manners and Customs of the Romans. Translated from the German of Professor Becker, by FREDER- 2. Charicles: or Illustrations of the Private Life of the Ancient Greeks; with Notes and Excursus. Translated from the German of Professor Becker, by the REV. FREderick Metcalfe, M. A. VIII. THE PAST AND THE PRESENT OF THE AMERICAN 2. The Religious Theory of Civil Government : a Discourse delivered at the Annual Election, Wednesday, January 5th, 1848. By ALEXANDER XI. LEICHHARDT'S EXPEDITION IN AUSTRALIA 1. Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a Distance of upwards of 3000 Miles, during the Years 1844, 1845. 2. Cooksland in Northeastern Australia; the Fu- ture Cotton-field of Great Britain: its Characteristics Disquisition on the Origin, Manners, and Customs of and Capabilities for European Colonization. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CXXXVIII. JANUARY, 1848. ART. I. Delle Speranze d' Italia. (CESARE BALBO.) Capolago. 1845. 1845. 12mo. THEY know but little of an author's trials who suppose them to begin and end with the composition of a book. It is hard work, it is true, to choose your subject, and when chosen, to divide it into its proper parts, to adjust them all nicely to one another, to make an accurate distribution of proof and development and illustration, to say just as much as you ought, and no more, and say it in a style and in language suited both to the subject and to the readers for whom it is designed. But when all this is accomplished, and you would fain launch your fragile bark upon the waters, how often are you at a loss to say under what name it shall go forth; to find that magic word, which, amid the contending crowd of courtiers and favorites, shall draw one inquiring glance to this unknown adventurer, and which, while it excites curiosity and awakens expectation, shall hold out no promise which you are not prepared to perform! In this respect we may congratulate Count Balbo upon his success. We may call him happy in the choice of a title so justly expressive of his own generous feelings; singularly felicitous in the selection of a word clear and definite in its promises, and which falls upon the ear like one of those mysterious strains which you sometimes hear, amid the dewy stillness of evening, from the ivy-crowned ruins of his own beautiful land. Twenty years ago, who would have thought of such a title? What Italian would have dared to set his No. 138. VOL. LXVI. 1 name to such a picture of his country's wants and wrongs and errors, and still live at home? Who could thus have braved passion and power, and have hoped to escape the Spielberg or a stiletto? This little volume is more than a promise, it is a performance; it is more than a hope, it is a reality, — a tangible proof, a living witness, that, however sad the past, however gloomy the present, there is still for Italy a future worthy of a patriot's hopes and a philanthropist's aspirations. And it is this spirit of faith and trust which forms one of the great charms of this volume. We have no sympathy with perpetual skepticism. We do not understand how a man can pretend to believe in an overruling Providence, and yet despair of the progress of his race. It is such a bold as sumption of superior wisdom, such a heartless denial of God's goodness, that we have no patience with it. That great law of progress is written in such broad characters on every page of history, that he who runs may read it there. The past, without it, is unintelligible; the present, so cheerless and dreary, that earnest hearts would sink under the burden, and man, reduced to the selfish bounds of his own individuality, would be absolved from all those endearing and ennobling ties which, connecting him with the past by gratitude and with the future by hope, prepare him with each progressive generation for higher aims, more expansive usefulness, and purer enjoyment. And if this faith in the future be necessary everywhere, how vitally essential is it in speaking of Italy! Nowhere have the elements of discord and harmony been so singularly mingled as there; never such tenacity of purpose, with such imperfect results; a will so indomitable, with such irregularity of action; so much weakness and so much energy; such spotless purity and such black corruption; such heavenward aspirations, with such abject debasement; so close and enduring an alliance of hope and despair. No history is fraught with lessons of more universal application; in none have the great questions of social organization been more boldly or variously propounded. And yet, after nearly three thousand years of struggle and revolution and endurance, after having proved every vicissitude of favorable and of adverse fortune, ruling by religion long after she had ceased to rule by the sword, opening new paths in every science, while she left them |