REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. istorical and Select Memoirs of the Empress Josephine, | many people will forget your kindnesses. After having The larger portion of this work is made up of the acDunt given by Josephine herself of the events of her life; ad that part contributed by M'lle. Le Normand, completes biography of the gifted, the fortunate and unfortunate een of Napoleon. The Memoirs of Josephine sparkle with French sprightliness, and abound with French sentiment. Her style is eminently graceful, and the turn of ought such as we would expect from the most accomished and fascinating woman of her times. The narrave is neither very copious nor very regular; but all that told is of the deepest interest. It abounds in domestic necdotes of the great usurper, and reports conversations etween him and his wife, in which, by the way, her peeches rival, in prolixity, those given us by Livy. Many of her views of Bonaparte and herself are novel and triking, and calculated, if relied upon, to change opinions w generally entertained as truths. In relation to herself, er tone is one of almost unvarying self-eulogium; and the miable and excellent qualities which she is known to have possessed need no better chronicler. She was of the opinion that her abilities and services, which were eminent and various, secured Napoleon's advancement at every step of his rapid career from obscurity to the imperial throne; and that the loss of her influence and counsels was the neces sary harbinger of his downfall. For the movements that secured him the First Consulship, she claims almost exclusive credit. That she was an artful politician, and used, with great effect, the graces of mind, manner, and person, with which she was singularly endowed, to promote the interests of her husband, is certain; but it may be doubted whether his mighty genius ever leaned for support upon the political skill and counsel of a woman—even though that woman were Josephine. She, like her wonderful husband, seems to have cherished a superstitious reliance upon destiny-a weakness singularly inconsistent with their general character. The story of the early prediction that she would become a queen is given with an amusing simplicity and earnestness. The prophecy is as follows: astonished the world, you will die miserable. The country Any fortune-teller might tell, and no doubt, if she thought The pages of these memoirs afford us the harshest and "You will be married to a man of a fair complexion, scribes him as vain, cruel, often weak, and at times ab- w positive misrepresentations are resorted to, calculated to blacken his character. Thus, in relation to the disaster at the bridge on the Elster, she says: "I likewise learned that my husband has passed the only bridge by which he could make good his retreat; but in order to prevent pursuit by the foreign army, he had ordered it to be blown up at the very moment it was covered with thousands of Frenchmen, who were endeavoring to fly. By means of this murderous manœuvre he abandoned a part of his army on the bank of the stream." Now this is a most inhuman calumny, and one that sounds strangely coming from a French woman, and that woman the wife of the unfortunate Napoleon. Bonaparte's strongest and ablest decryer, Alison, admits that the destruction of the bridge was an accident, resulting from the mistake of a corporal, who supposed the retreating French upon the bridge were the pursuing allies, and fired the train. It is seldom that we expect to find extraordinary instances of conjugal affection upon thrones; and we are strongly disposed to believe that the love of Josephine for her husband has been exaggerated. According to her own account, she had many previous draughts made upon her capital stock of love; and she describes her marriage with Napoleon as one induced by the representations of Barras and Mad. Tallien of the advantages to be derived from it. She thus characterizes her feelings toward Bonaparte just before marriage. "I discovered in him a tone of assurance and exaggerated pretension, which injured him greatly in my estimation. The more I studied his character, the more I discovered the oddities for which I was at a loss to account; and at length he inspired me with so much aversion that I ceased to frequent the house of Mad. Chat*** Ren***, where he spent his evenings." Notwithstanding the excessive affection professed, a large portion of the period of their connection seems to have been embroiled and troubled. Yet there can be no doubt that she devoted herself assiduously and faithfully to the promotion and protection of the greatness which she shared; and, at the close of her career, though she caressed his conquerors, she died uttering the warmest expressions of affection for him, even in the presence of his foe. The death-scene, as described by M'lle. Le Normand, is truly touching. Her last tears fell upon the portrait of Napoleon. The whole story is full of romance, and will be read with great interest. The translator has performed his task with eminent ability; and the volumes are printed in a style highly creditable to the publishers. Memoir of Sarah B. Judson, Member of the American Mission to Burmah. By "Fanny Forester." New York: L. Colby & Co. It cannot be necessary for us to recommend to the readers of Graham's Magazine any work from the pen of the fascinating "Fanny Forester." Her literary history is associated in their minds with the most agreeable recollections of a female writer, among the sweetest, the most brilliant, the most charming of the many whom our country has produced. They will remember her, too, in that most eventful scene and surprising change of her life, in which the popular authoress was suddenly, and voluntarily, transformed into the humble missionary; sacrificing, from a sense of Christian duty, all the pride and allurements of literary distinction, along with friends, home, the safety and happiness of civilized society, that she might take up the cross, and carry it, an offering of salvation, to the benighted Heathen of Asia, even in the depths of their own far and pestilential climates. in the lowly attitude of a biographer commemorating the virtues of a departed sister and predecessor in the same field of Christian devotion-the devoted and sainted woman whose places "Fanny Forester" herself now occupies as a wife and missionary, performing the same duties, exposed to the same trials and sufferings, in the same distant and perilous regions of Asia. The subject and the writer are thus united-we might say identified-as parts of the same attractive theme, and co-actors in the same sacred drama. Under such circumstances, the Memoir of Mrs. Judson could not be otherwise than profoundly interesting; and it will prove so, not only to all those who admire the authoress, but to all who love the cause to which she has dedicated her talents, her life, her fame. It is, indeed, s beautiful, a deeply engaging, an affecting volume, uniting a kind of romantic character, derived from the scenes and perils it describes, with the deeper interest of a record of the evangelization of the heathen. It is peculiarly adapte too, to the reading of people of the world, whose Leara have not yet been warmed, or whose minds have not been instructed, on the subject of Christian missions. They caanot take it up without reading it; they cannot read it with out rising better informed, and with better dispositions than before, in regard to the great cause which boasts-or has boasted-such servants as Mrs. Judson and “Fanny Fo rester." The History of a Penitent. A Guide for the Inquiring, a a Commentary on the One Hundred and Thirtieth Psaim By George W. Bethune, D. D., Minister of the Third Re formed Dutch Church, Philadelphia. Henry Perkins 142 Chesnut Street. This work, which is beautifully dedicated to Dr. Alex ander, is written with much of the characteristic force and fervor of its author, and with more than his ordinary re search and elaboration. He informs us that his parpan has been to help the inquiring soul and Christ young with counsel taken immediately from the unerring w he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rad than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grate › 1 style. Yet there is in this volume much of the auther usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been made acquainted wi the high merits of Dr. Bethune as a poet, by his contr tions to "Graham ;" but highly as we appreciate his vere, there is a directness, an originality, an old-fashioned pow in his prose which we prefer, and which we think pla him in the first class of American writers. On subje like that treated in the volume before us, his whole hear and mind seem to be poured into his pages; and in the perusal we doubt whether most to admire the divine t the rhetorician. Keble's Chistian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sunday and Holidays throughout the Year. Philadelphia: Ga S. Appleton. 148 Chestnut Street. This beautiful volume is printed from the thirtyLondon edition. Its merits are so well and universa known and appreciated that to review it would, to ca readers, be tedious as a twice told tale. Suffice it to s that its object is to bring the thoughts and feelings of wat shipers into more entire unison with those recomme and exemplified in the Prayer Book. The poetry of t volume is often even worthy the exalted subjects of w it treats, and is never unworthy them. Its extraore popularity is the best evidence of its merit; for poetry never generally and permanently popular without res The missionary appears again as an authoress; but it is merit. |