s a theme so poetical in itself to
_be_ poetical, without any officious help from himself, and that, though
an artist, he does not enter on any of those disquisitions which would
have made Sir Joshua shift his trumpet. On the whole, we are inclined
to forgive him the polyglot lumber of his chapter on the Evil Eye in
consideration of the scenery and galleries which he has spared us. We
think we see symptoms that the Nature-mania which began with Rousseau
is on the decline, and that men and their ways are getting into fashion
again as worth study. The good time is perhaps coming when some gallant
fellow will out with it that he hates mountains, and will be greeted
with a shout of delight from his emancipated brethren.

Mr. Story is a person of very remarkable endowments. An accomplished
musician and poet, (we ought to have said before how remarkably good the
translations in these volumes are,) a skilful draughtsman, the author of
reputable law-books, he would seem to have been in danger of verifying
the old saw, had he not proved himself so eminently a master in
sculpture. We think the country is deeply indebted to Mr. Story for
having won so complete a triumph at the London World's Fair with his
Cleopatra and Libyan Sibyl, at a time when English statesmen and
newspapers were assuring the world that America was relapsing into
barbarism. Those statues, if we may trust the unvarying witness of
judicious persons, are conceived and executed in a style altogether
above the stone-cutting level of the day, and give proof of real
imaginative power. Mr. Story's genius and culture, with the fresh spur
of so marked a success, will, we are sure, produce other works to his
own honor and that of his country. For we feel that we have a country
still,--feel it the more deeply for our suffering, and our hope
deferred,--and out of the darkness of to-day we have still faith to see
a fairer America rising, a higher ideal of freedom, to warm the soul of
the artist and nerve the arm of the soldier.

_Hand-Book of Universal Literature._ From the Latest and Best
Authorities. By MRS. ANNE C.L. BOTTA. A New Edition. 12mo. Boston:
Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

A thing once done assumes a magical simplicity. No matter what may have
been the previous difficulty, or how much work may be involved in
the result, yet, when the work is done, the problem solved, all the
difficulty and labor promptly disappear from view, as if in dread of
being led captiv