The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 1, July 1837Various
History
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 1, July 1837
Various
Periodicals
Long, long within the silent tomb
Thy cherished form has laid,
And other woes have chased the gloom
That dark bereavement made;
Yet bright to Memory's fond survey
Each lineament appears,
As when it shed its living ray
On eyes undimmed by tears!
No more the buoyant hopes of youth
Their wonted joy impart,
And childhood's dream of changeless truth
Has ceased to warm my heart;
But while its languid pulses move,
Life's crimson tide to bear,
The sweet remembrance of thy love
Shall still be treasured there!
X.
LITERARY NOTICES.
LETTERS OF LUCIUS M. PISO, from Palmyra, to his Friend MARCUS
CURTIUS, at Rome. Now first Translated and Published. In two
volumes, 12mo. pp. 498. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS. Boston: JOSEPH
H. FRANCIS.
WE shall offer no apology, nor will our readers deem one necessary,
for devoting so large a portion of the review department of the
present number of this Magazine to an extended notice of the work
before us. The letters contained in the first volume have already
appeared in our pages; and the great and deserved popularity which
they have acquired, will insure eager readers for the remainder,
(the issue of which public opinion has hastened,) which advance in
interest to the very close of the work. The conception of the plan
is most felicitous--the execution masterly, beyond modern example.
The author seems, primarily, to have _saturated_ his mind with the
very spirit of the past. He has rolled back the tide of time, and
placed us in Palmyra, the magnificent capital of the East, and
caused all her glories to pass palpably before us, as if we were
gazing upon a moving panorama. Commencing with the first faint dawn
of the Christian faith, he infuses into the reader 'a soul of old
religion.' His characters are marked with great force; while a nice
verisimilitude of individual nature is combined with elegance of
fancy, and a richness of ideal coloring, wholly unsurpassed by any
kindred writer. The plot--if a succession of events converging to a
final point may be so denominated--is natural and unperplexed; while
the minor descriptive scenes, which are often interwoven, and the
inferior characters, are equally well sketched. Though fluctuating
between history and romance, the work no where fails to disguise
the presence of the latter. The reader is _with_ the characters and
_of_ them, from first to last, such is the author's happy freedom of
delineation, and the harmony and ease both of incident and style.
We proceed to justify our encomiums by liberal extracts, commencing
with a stirring picture, which our readers would readily recognise,
without consulting the _quis sculpsit_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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