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fault, you have very clever men whose opinions you would like to learn, but they are over-cautious. They love to elicit other people's thoughts; and when you part from them, you find they have said out to you nothing of their own. They have paid you the ill-compliment of seeming to think that you were not to be trusted with their thoughts. Then there is the rash talker, often very witty and very brilliant; but those who sit round him, especially his host, are a little afraid each moment of what he will say next, and of whether it will not be something offensive to some body. I remember an apprehensive host describing to me once the escapades of such a man in a mixed company, and ending by saying: "I thought all the time how I should have liked to have left them all there, and got at once into a cold bath in my own room." Lastly, I must notice the self-contained talker, whose talk is monologue-not that he necessarily usurps the conversationbut that he does not call any one else out, as it were, or make answer to any one. He merely imparts fragments of his own

mind, but has no notion of the art of weaving them into conversation; and so a texture is produced consisting of threads running in one direction only. He makes speeches; he does not enter into a debate.

I think I have shown from the above how difficult it is for a man to be, intellectually speaking, a pleasant companion. But so greatly more effective in this mat ter are the moral than the intellectual qualities, that a man shall have any one of these faults, or all of them combined that will admit of combination, and yet be a pleasant and welcome companion, if he be but a genial and good fellow.

An eastern monarch, (I think it was Tippoo Saib,) after stating succinctly in his letters what he had to say, used to conclude with the abrupt expression: "What need I say more?" So I too, having shown you that pleasantness proceeds from good qualities, that it is rare, that it is a worthy object of ambition, beg you all for the future to study to be plea sant. What need I say more?

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MR. THOMAS DE QUINCY died at Edinburgh, December eight, 1859, after an illness of some weeks' duration. This announcement will excite a deeply sympathetic interest among all lovers of English literature throughout the world. With his departure almost the very last of a brilliant band of men of letters, who illuminated the literary hemisphere of the first half of our century with starry lustre -differing each from each in glory, but all resplendentis extinguished. It is only the other day that a volume of Mr. de Quincy's collected works appeared with his own corrections and notes, and, till close on the hour when it passed beyond our horizon, his pure and high intellect shone serene and clear as when in its zenith. Almost till the very last his perceptions were as vivid, his interest in knowledge and affairs as keen as ever;

DE

QUINCEY.

and while his bodily frame, wasted by suffering and thought, day by day faded and shrunk, his mind retained unimpaired its characteristic capaciousness, activity, and acuteness. Within a week or two he talked readily, and with all that delicacy of discrimination of which his conversation partook equally with his writing, of such matters as occupied the attention of our citizens or of our countrymen, displaying so much of elasticity and power, that even those who had the rare privilege and opportunity of seeing him in those latter days can not be otherwise than startled and shocked by the seeming suddenness of his death. Yet he was full of years, having considerably passed the term of threescore and ten, and in him, if ever in any man, the sword may be said to have worn out its scabbard. Not only the continual exercise of the brain, but the ex

treme sensibility of his emotional nature | his were soothed and cheered by the genhad so taxed and wasted his never athletic tlest and most tender filial solicitude and

sor.

physical frame, that the wonder lay rather care. Two of Mr. de Quincey's daughin his life having been so prolonged. Full of years he has also died full of honors such as he cared to win, leaving behind him the name not only of a profound scholar in the department he affected, but one of the greatest masters of English pure and undefiled who ever handled the pen. He is the absolute creator of a species of "impassioned prose" which he seemed born to introduce, and in which he had no prototype, no rival, no succesIn the free exercise of his rare and peculiar genius, he swept with eagle-plume through spheres far too ethereal to sustain a common fight; yet he soared not vaguely, but as bearing with serene and steady eye towards the light of truth. Nor while familiar with all the mysteries of "cloud-land, gorgeous land," was he less a denizen of our common earth, or less keenly alive to the influence of its "smiles and tears." Indeed, as he admits in his famous Confessions, Mr. De Quincy was only too susceptible to every touch of human sympathy, being endowed with such exquisite sensibility as thrilled with too ready and deep response to every note

of

The still, sad music of humanity.

This overwrought sensitiveness it seems to be that caused him to withdraw almost entirely from the society of even his most esteemed friends, to shut himself up with his books and manuscripts, and to remit his seclusion only at rare intervals. For many months past he has resided in Edinburgh, preferring the town to his house at Lasswade, mainly for the convenience of superintending the passage through the press of the collected edition of his works, now being issued by Messrs. Hogg, and of which the fourteenth and last volume is nearly ready for publication. For some weeks past his health had been seriously affected, but as he was frequently an invalid, alarm was not excited as to his condition until very lately, and the end, though it could not be said to be either sudden or premature, was yet so far unexpected. Nothing that the most earnest and devoted medical skill could supply was wanted to alleviate the symptoms of what was ultimately rather rapid decay than disease; and, as far as such days and hours ever can be, these mortal hours of

ters, his youngest and eldest, were with him at the close. The second, the wife of Colonel Baird Smith, is in India with her husband; one of his sons is also in India, a captain in the army; the other, a physician, is in Brazil. The eldest daughter is the wife of Mr. Robert Craig, formerly of this neighborhood, now a farmer in Ireland, whence she was called to her father's death-bed. The youngest is unmarried. Though living, as we have said, generally in studied seclusion, Mr. de Quincey had many friends who will be saddened by the announcement of his removal; no one could even have casual intercourse with such a man without ever afterwards cherishing towards him a feeling of kindly and admiring interest. When his often feeble health and always uncertain spirits permitted him, in later years, to mingle, at rarest intervals, in a small social circle at his own house, or elsewhere, he was always one of the most cheerful of the party, touching every topic with the lights of his exquisitely delicate fancy, and enjoying, with catholic zest, now the playful prattle of a child, and again the sharp encounter of maturest wits. His conversation had an inexpressible charm-with all that beauty of language, subtlety of thought, variety of illustration, and quaintness of humor that distinguish his writings, his talk never either became pedantic or degenerated into soliloquy or monologue. It was that of a highly accomplished scholar and gentleman; his whole manner and bearing had something of almost chivalrous polish and refinement of tone, the result not more of intercourse with refined society than his exquisitely considerate and courteous nature. A nature so deep and tender drew towards itself affection as largely as admiration; and with profound esteem for the learning, the power, the genius of the writer, will always mingle much of love for the man. It will be long before the literature of England can boast renewal of such a rare combination of scholarship. of analytic force, of acute reasoning, and courageous speculation, with such imaginative power and deep all-embracing sympathy as this generation has had the privilege of knowing in Thomas De Quincey.

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without the dangers and privations which these bold and fearless navigators encountered.

THE NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA. A Popular Dic- | reader far away into Arctic regions and eternal ice, tionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. In about fifteen large octavo volumes, of 750 two-column pages each. New-York: D. Appleton and Company, London: 16 Little 346 and 348 Broadway. Britain.

or. Reviews LIFE WITHOUT AND LIFE WITHIN; Narratives, Essays, and Poems. By MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, author of Woman in the NineBosteenth Century, At Home and Abroad, etc. New-York: ton: Brown Taggard and Chase. Sheldon and Company. Philadelphia: Lippincott and Company.

THIS volume is divided into three parts: I. Reviews, of which there are twenty-six, on various topics of interest. Part II. Miscellaneous, compris ing twenty-three subjects. Part III. is made up of which there are more than forty, from the pen of tho poems, longer or shorter, on various themes, of talented authoress. The friends of this unfortunate lady will be glad to find the fruits of her pen in a

form so attractive.

THE GOSPEL IN BURMAH; the Story of its Intro-
duction and Marvelous Progress among the Bur-
By Mrs. MACLEOD WYLIE.
mese and Karens.
New-York: Sheldon and Company, 115 Nas-au
street. Boston: Gould and Lincoln. 1860.

WE beg to call the attention of our readers to the full statement and programme of this great work to be found on the last leaf of the letter-press of the No work of the February number of the ECLECTIC. kind, we believe, has ever been before attempted or published on this side of the Atlantic, scarcely approximating in perfection and completeness to this splendid work of the Appletons. It is an honor to the literature of the country-to the talents, learning, research, and indomitable industry of the accomplished editors and their collaborators, and to the enterprise of the well-known publishers. The ordinary reader can hardly appreciate the vast amount of knowledge-acquaintance with general literature and all the great family of the sciences-of history, biography, philosophy-the great names which have adorned past ages and countries and the present, needful on the part of the editors in order to introduce and arrange in these volumes the immense treasures and affluence of knowledge which they contain. They have performed thus far (for only eight or nine volumes of the fifteen are complete) their arduous labors with great skill, taste, and judg ment in the lucid use of language, condensed and powerful thought, and in the arrangement of the innumerable variety of subjects and topics of general knowledge which are so useful and valuable in a work of this kind. If the reader had in his possession the most complete library, public or private, in this country, we doubt if he could find by any means THE scene of this spirited Romance is laid in the all that he will find in this noble monument to the industry of the editors the New American Cyclo-north-east of England, and is then transferred to pædia. All we can say in this brief notice can couvoy no adequate notion of the value of the work itself. Gentlemen of wealth and literary appetites. patrons of learning and knowledge, the friends of public libraries and atheneums, colleges, and high-attendant ghost had a particular fondness for the schools, we doubt not will enrich their libraries with the wealth of these volumes, and thus place within the reach of a multitude of minds this great storehouse of convenient and valuable knowledge.

THE VOYAGE OF THE FOX IN THE ARCTIC SEAS.
A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir
John Franklin and his Companions. By Captain
With maps and illus-
MCCLINTOCK, R.N., L.L.D.
trations. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

THE graphic and marvelous story of the Gospel's intoduction into Burmah by the apostolic Judson and his compeers, is an illustration of the remark, that "truth is sometimes stranger than fiction." It is enough to mention the theme of this book to any who have heard of it, in order to secure its purchase and perusal.

SIR ROHAN'S GHOST. A Romance. Pp. 352. Boston: J. E. Tilton and Company, 161 Washington street. 1860.

the region of Cornwall in the opposite part of the island, by raising the curtain of its graphic descriptions. The first salutation to the reader is, that "There is a Ghost in all aristocratic families."

This

great house of Belvidere, of which Sir Rohan was a renowned member. The ghost went with him to every place, riding in his train or not far from it, whose imagination had given it birth. The book is graphic in its imagery, and gorgeous in its drapery of language, carrying the mind of the reader along to the end. The author holds the pen of a pleasant the course of the narrative with delighted footsteps and graceful writer, with whom the reader will find it agreeable to go along to the end of his literary journey. We ought sooner to have told our readers about it.

A DEEP and heart-felt sympathy for the sad and melancholy fate of the renowned Sir John Franklin LIFE IN SPAIN: PAST AND PRESENT. BY WALTER THORNBURY. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder and his brave companions has sent a thrill of sorrow & Co. through the civilized world. The narrative of their adventures and sufferings, and of those who sought to find and relieve them, will long continue to be read with interest. So, this volume will take the

THE substance of these volumes appeared in Household Words; but the matter has been revised

and newly arranged. The account given relates chiefly to Moorish and Southern Spain. The volumes belong to a class of publications in which the vivid, the picturesque, and the strongly-marked character and incident are so common as to make you desirous of knowing how far the fact has been overlaid with fiction. Perhaps the impression conveyed by such narratives is not, upon the whole, untruthful, and certainly in Mr. Thornbury's hands, they both amuse and interest.

JOHN ANGELL JAMES. A Review of his History, Character, Eloquence, etc., by Dr. CAMPBELL, has just been published by Snow. A Library Edition of his collected Works, edited by his son, is to be immediately published by Hamilton, Adams & Co. Rev. R. W. Dale, his colleague and successor, is preparing a Memoir of him.

SCHILLER'S LIFE AND WORKS. BY EMIL PALESKE. Translated by LADY WALLACE. 2 vols. Longman. The British Quarterly characterizes it as "very sentimental, very laudatory, and very ungenerous towards all genius that does not happen to be Schiller genius." The Westminster notices it with commendation.

MARVELS IN GREECE AND AN EXCURSION TO CRETE.
By BAYARD TAYLOR. LOW & Co.

THE British Quarterly says of it: "Mr. Taylor. is an American of considerable experience in travel, and looks on Greece with the eye of an intelligent United States man, rather than with the eye of an Oxonian fully up in the old Greek authorities. But his descriptive powers are good; he can tell his story well, is all the more trustworthy for being prepared to judge of what he sees by sight, rather than by pre-conception. But it must be remembered that Mr. Taylor's travels extended through Hungary into Russia."

ARCHITECTURE.-Mr. Ruskin is about to bring out a fifth volume of his Modern Painters. His Elements of Perspective he describes as “arranged for the use of schools, and intended to be read in connection with the first three books of Euclid."

G. H. Parker, of Oxford, has published several works on The Domestic Architecture of England, understood to be mostly from his own pen, and "forming," says the British Quarterly, “a valuable, deeplyinteresting contribution towards a full and accurate appreciation of English History."

THE first number of a Quarterly Index to Current Literature has appeared. Its object is a good one; and if the work is carefully and thoroughly executed, it will be a great help to the student of litera

ture.

DARWIN'S Origin of Species by Natural Selection is exciting much interest from the novelty of his The work has been republished in America. views and the ability with which they are set forth.

THE first number of the eagerly-anticipated Cornhill Magazine, edited by W. M. THACKERAY, has appeared. Great disappointment is expressed in some quarters in regard to its artistic and literary attractions.

THE Abbé Domenech, whose work on Texas recently excited so much attention in Europe, is about to publish in London a book, in two volumes, called Seven Years' Residence in the Great Deserts of North-America.

MASSIMO D'AZEGLIO, the celebrated Italian statesman, author and artist, has recently published in Paris, and in French, a work entitled, La Politique du droit Chrétien, au point de vue de la question Italienne. D'Azeglio's theory is that, whereas Christianity has penetrated the social, intellectual, and religious life of nations, the sphere of politics is still left a prey to Paganism and the ruling princi ples thereof-violence, conquest, and slavery. Hence the present complications.

another neat volume published by Sheldon & THE FLORENCE STORIES, by Jacob Abbott, forms Company. It is enough to mention the name of the very popular author of this book to attract

SIXTEEN YEARS OF AN ARTIST'S LIFE IN MOROCco, SPAIN, AND THE CANARY ISLANDS. By Mrs. ELIZABETH MURRAY. 2 vols. Hurst & Blackett. "THESE are two remarkably pleasant and interesting volumes," says the British Quarterly, “giving an intelligent lady's narrative of her long sojourn in Morocco, her traveling experiences in Spain, her residence and journeys in the Canary Islands. Mrs. Murray, as a lady traveler, has had peculiar advantages for seeing harem-life among the Moors, scarcely less amusing domestic details among the LORD BROUGHAM is about to publish, in a single Spaniards and the inhabitants of the Canary Islands; volume, his principal scientific and mathematical she has, therefore, given us a series of very graphic works. They consist of: General Theorems, chiefsketches, although, as the artist, she has here donely porisms on the higher geometry; Kepler's Pro

but little."

THE OLD BATTLE-GROUND. By J. T. TROWBRIDGE, author of Father Brighthopes, etc. New-York: Sheldon & Company. 1860.

a host of readers.

blem; Calculus of Partial Differences; Greek GeoIntegral Calculus; Architecture of Cells of Bees; metry, (ancient analysis ;) Paradoxes imputed to the Experiments and Investigations on Light and Colors; Optical Inquiries, experimental and analytical; on THIS little volume describes not "the Old Battle-Forces of Attraction to Several Centers; and lastly, Ground" of blood and carnage and mortal strife, but the conflicts of passion amid life's phases and changes, its vicissitudes and bitter trials, which make most of the world a battle-ground of human conflicts.

The same house has published THE OAKLAND STORIES, of kindred spirit to the Rollo Books, by Jacob Abbott, well suited to interest and instruct the youthful reader.

his Oration on Sir Isaac Newton. This volume is to be dedicated to the University of Edinburgha graceful compliment for his lordship's late nomination to the high post of Chancellor of that learned establishment. We understand that Mr. Gladstone, who has been chosen Rector of the same University, has some idea of publishing his speeches in a single volume, and also of dedicating them to the University of the northern capital.

NISBIT & Co., London, announce a new work in press, which we doubt not will be read with inerest, Through the Tyrol to Venice. By Mrs. NEWMAN HALL.

DR. WATTS.-Nearly £400 have been subscribed for the statue to Dr. Isaac Watts, in the public park at Southampton, Dr. Watts' native town. Mr. Lucas, the sculptor, has commenced the statue, which will be above life-size, and with the pedes

Rev. A. MORTON Brown, LL.D., (Snow, publish-tal will stand nearly twenty feet high. About er,) has given to the world a book which is attracting attention, entitled, Peden the Prophet: a Tale of the Covenanters. The Glasgow Examiner says of it: "We have read the book with intense interest. While the book is emphatically one of factsfacts the most astounding in the annals of Scotland -it has all the fascination of fiction."

WHEN Mr. Adam Black, M.P., commenced the new edition of his Encyclopædia Britannica, Lord Macaulay felt so strong an interest in the undertaking, and so warm a regard for his old friend the publisher, that he said he would endeavor to send him an article for each letter of the alphabet. This generous offer the noble historian's failing health and various avocations prevented him from fully realizing; but he sent five articles to the Encyclopædia-memoirs of Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and William Pitt, the last being the latest finished production from his pen. As any publisher would have been glad to give £1000 for these contributions, their being presented as a free-will offering to Mr. Black, is a fact most honorable to both parties.

A NEW FORM OF MERCURIAL BAROMETER.-M. de Celles has exhibited to the Academy of Sciences, of Paris, a mercurial barometer, constructed under his direction. The barometer is the instrument of Torricelli, with the following modifications; first, the diameter of the barometic chamber is increased in proportion as it is desired to make the instrument more sensitive; second, the cistern is replaced by a horizontal tube 0.15 ins. or 0.2 ins. in diameter, and of a length proportionate to the sensibility of the instrument. The instrument has the form of a square. Slight variations of the hight of the vertical column correspond to considerable, but always proportional, movements of the horizontal leg. This ratio is inversely as the squares of the diameter. An index of iron, placed in the horizontal tube, is pressed outward while the pressure of the air is diminishing, and is left when the column returns. It makes the minimum pressure, and may be brought back by a magnet. M. de Celles claims for this instrument the three advantages: first, of very great sensitiveness; second, a constant level; third, a minimum index.

ASSYRIAN SLABS.-A new room has just been fitted up at the British Museum, in which are arranged a collection of Assyrian slabs, received from Kouyunjik, from the recent excavations of Hormuzd Rassam and Mr. W. K. Loftus. They contain many animal groups in low relief, but differ materially from the collections of Layard and RawJinson, in the spirit and life-likeness of their representations. Some of them are hardly inferior to the Greek sculptures in artistic merit. They are supposed to belong to the latest period of Assyrian art, about 2500 years ago. In an adjoining room, the Curators are arranging Carthaginian sculptures and antiquities, lately exhumed by Rev. Nathan Davis, among which are a number of relievi, with Phoenician inscriptions.

£200 more are required to be subscribed by the public. Mr. Lucas has completed a model of the statue, and has succeeded in perfecting an admirable likeness of the poet. The statue and pedestal will be of Balsover stone. The inauguration of the erection of the statue by a grand public ceremonial will take place.

THE BOTANICAL GARDEN of the Czar of Russia contains one of the finest collections of tropical plants in Europe. The extent of hot-houses is nearly a mile and a half. As there are only three warm months in the year, the plants during this interval are forced as much as possible, so that the growth of six months is obtained in that time, and their productive qualities kept up to their normal standard. Although in the regions of almost perpetual snow, one may here walk through an avenue of palm-trees sixty feet high, under ferns and bananas, by ponds of lotus and Indian lily, and banks of splendid flowers, breathing an air heavy with the richest and warmest odors.

DIAMONDS.-A Mr. Amunn has arrived in London, having for sale a considerable parcel of diamonds, some of them quite extraordinary for size and importance. He had disposed of a few, the price ranging from £1000 to £15,000. An uncut brilliant of unusual magnitude he has refused to part with for seven million francs, and stands out for £300,000, which, if he can't get in Paris, he carries the gem to Amsterdam or St. Petersburg. The "diggings," in Lucknow and some other favorite hidden localities during the mutiny were not unproductive.

Are these

A CARGO OF BONES FROM SEBASTOPOL.-A ship laden with two hundred and thirty-seven tons of bones, last from Sebastopol, arrived in England on the twenty-fifth ult. The fact is gravely announced, and we would ask seriously: Is it true? the bones of the Russian or of the allied soldiers? Are they the bones of horses and of other animals which perished in the siege? Are they the bones of men and of animals commingled, and now exported by Russia and imported by English speculators to manure our fields? The subject is one which must be so painful to many persons whose relatives and friends were engaged in the late war that it would be well if it were quickly and quietly set at rest. All we know of the matter is, that an English ship has just arrived in port with-among other articles of freight-two hundred and thirty-seven tons of bones from Sebastopol.

WHEN the celebrated Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburtor, was "stating law" to a jury in court, Lord Mansfield interrupted him by saying: "If that be law, I'll go home and burn my books." "My Lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home and read them."

SOON after the battle of Lobau, a wit observed that Bonaparte must now be in funds, for he had lately received a check on the bank of the Danube.

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