The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-09 00:00:00

LIBRARIES FOR THE PEOPLE.

BURNS' SELECT LIBRARY. Chronicles by Sir
John froissart. 2 Vets.
BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY. history of
the Popes. By Leopold Bunke.
BENTLEY'S STANDARD NOVELS. The ha-
prorisatore. By Hans C. Andersen.
COLBURN'S STANDARD NOVELS. Emilia
Wyndham. By the Author of " Mount Sorel," 6.c.
KNIGHT'S MONTHLY VOLUME. The Book
of Table Talk. By several Contributors.
MURRAY'S HOME AND COLONIAL LI.
BRARY. Adventures in Mexico. '2 Parts.
A brilliant evidence of the spread of knowledge
and of the substantial progress of civilization is af-
forded by the enterprise upon which some of
our most distinguished publishers have adventured.
Instead of exclusively devoting their energies
to the production of works of a costly character—
with paper of the thickness of vellum and the smooth-
ness of satin, bound in morocc-) and emblazoned with
arabesquez—they appear to be emulating each other
by issuing vislumes of very considerable intrinsic
value, and yet of extraordinary cheapness. With all
this einula ion, moreover, the books thus published
are of a sound and wholesome kind as regards morality,
and of some note in the higher walks of literature.
They tend in a great measure to compensate society
for those brutalizing and pernicious effusions which
may be termed the spawn of literary depravity—fie-
tions of an imbecility worthy of Catnach, of a vul-
garity not unsuited to Whitechapel, and of a licentious-
ness as gross as the most lascivious passages of Charles
Paul de Kock. Of such productions there are, un-
happily, but too many ; they are written for many
guineas and sold for a few pence; they are heaped up
in the windows of the lower order of booksellers;
they are disfigured by the coarsest wood-cuts, are
circulated in the form of weekly serials, and are, we
doubt not, if the truth were known, most frequently
to be met with in the beershop and the brothel.
Against these disgusting and (morally speaking)
poisonous periodicals vigorous efforts have, of late
years, been made by more than one eminent and po-
pular publisher. If we are not wonderfully mistaken,
the very first individual who made this attempt
systematically was Charles Knight—a man who has
since acquired for himself an elevated position in our
national literature, by becoming the biographer and
one of the most discriminating commentators of
Shakspere. Immediately after Mr. Knight came the
two brothers William and Robert Chambers, of
Edinburgh. To those three publishers, and to the
memorable " Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge"—a society originated, inaugurated, and
conducted throughout by Lord Brougham—the gra-
titude of the people of England is in a very great
measure due. They have effected more than State
allowances for education (God knows !) in purify-
ing the taste and enlarging the minds of the humble
classes. Their compositions have done immeasurably
more in the way of imparting instruction and diffus
ing information than all the schoolmasters of all the
normal schools of the United Kingdom. Their
penny magazines, and penny tracts, and three-half-
penny journals, and sixpenny treatises, have proved of
far more practical benefit to the community than
quires of evangelical pamphlets and cartloads of
orthodox homilies. They have revealed to the un-
educated—God through Nature, and Religion through
Philosophy. Since the groundwork of improvement
Ives established by these singularly cheap periodicals, a
higher class of writing has been brought out in the
shape of a succession of complete volumes. The
effort has spread from I,Vdinburgh and Ludgate 'hill
to New Burlington street, to Great Marlborough-
street, to Portman-street, to York-street, and to
Albemarle-street. Mr. Bentley, Mr. Colburn, Mr.
Burns, Mr. Bohn, and Mr. Murray, have prospered
in the same field in which Mr. Knight and the Messrs.
Chambers had already met with such remarkable
successes. To " Burns Select Library" a new addition
has tist been made by a reprint of " The Chronicles
of England, France, and Spain," by Sir John Frois-
sart. This edition is a condensation into two volumes
of the renowned original, but, although the present
copy is a curtailment, it is so abbreviated as in no
respect whatever to mar the beauty, the grace, or the
eloquence, of the descriptions. The narrative
is rather pruned of redundancy than dwarfed
into deformity. Appropriate embellishments are
given to the heroic chronicles, and the frontispieces
are in a manner miniature cartoons. Of itself, this
single work, in its present form, must have been
regarded as a boon to the multitude, enabling the
middle classes to familiarise themselves with a very
celebrated and splendid composition, at a very
moderate outlay—but it must be remembered that
the production is only one out of a voluminous series.
As an extension of that series it is doubly welcome.
In the new edition of the important " History of the
Popes," by Leopold Ranke (translated by E.Foster),we
have a fresh instalment of " Bohn's Standard Library."
Already we have repeatedly had occasion to commend
the selection of the prose and poetical works which
has characterised this publication from its very com-
mencement. In reviewing it from time to time, we
have spoken of the philosophic lectures of Schlegel,
the rhetorical writings of Robert Hall, the biographies
of Roscoe, the dramas of Schiller, the memoirs of
Cellini, the revolutionary chapters of Lamartine, the
political treatises of Machiavelli, &c., &c.; we have now
to mention the issue of one of the most noted histo-
rical labours of modern times, the record of the deeds,
the policy, and the vicissitudes which have marked
the eras of the Pontificate. It were needless
to enter at this moment upon any criti-
cal examination of the work of Leopold Ranke; the
demerits of his luminous pages have been noticed
repeatedly by some of the most enlightened critics of
the age (and, among others, by Mr. Macaulay);
it is therefore only necessary to observe that
the most scrupulous attention has been paid
to its arrangements and typography, in this
novel and elegant scheme of republication.
The most celebrated fiction hitherto penned
b a remarkable and gifted man—the Danish poet,
Bans Christian Andersen—we mean, of course, in so
speaking, his " Improvisatore," is printed as the new
volume of " Bentley's Standard Novels." It is a
book which materially adds to the value of the series,
seeing that it is one which has acquired more
fame for its author than any single one •f his
other productions. To the generality it is
not probably as bewitching as his beauti-
ful " Picture Book without Pictures," or as melo-
dious as his songs and poetical fragments, or
as fascinating as his fantastic fancy of " The Shoes
of Fortune," or his other inimitable stories for chil-
dren. To cultivated minds, however, " The Impro-
visatore" is immeasurably more acceptable than the
previous compositions of Andersen—conveying to us,
as it does so frestilyand deliciously his impressions of the
people and scenery of Italy ; and revealing, as it
does, the richness, the strength, the enthusiasm, the
gentleness, and the purity of his odd, but admirable
genius. Another novel of singular ability, but of a
more recent and less noted writer, "Emilia Wynd-
ham," is the last volume published of " Colburn's
Standard Novels," a library of equal merit to
the one just mentioned, and composed of very
different materials. The reprint extends to
upwards of five hundred goodly pages, and
is interesting as one of the most popular tales yet issued
by one of the most popular of our anonymous
novelists. Mr. Charles Cox, the publisher, has for a
considerable time past continued the " Monthly
Volumes" originally brought out by Mr. Charles
Knight, and the example of his predecessor appears,
to have excited him to a very laudable emulation. In
hands the periodical has been in no respect
de-
teriorated either in merit or variety. The last num-
ber(XX.Vl.) is among
the most entertaining yet
submitted to our attention, being a delightful
" Book
di of a
Table Talk," by several con-
tributors,book of such eccentric and
versified contents, as to remind us, especially,
of the famous " Year Book" of William Hone.
Many of the papers in it are illustrated with wood-
!,its, and two of them are indiscribably facetious—
the French cook, and the French postillion. Know-
ing the miseries to which the unfortunate Mexicans
are at this moment subjected in consequence of the
no unprincipledt aggression of their neighbours, we ean-
ut regard as well timed the new numbers (LII.
1
I.) of " Murray's home and Colonial Library."
y consist of " Adventures in Mexico and the
Rocky Mountains," by George F. Ruxton, penned in a
lively and gossipping strain, and coloured by a vivid
Recuracy.
They will convey to all observers in this
country an
excellent idea of the social peculiarities
and geographical characteristics of that splendid but
ill-doomed republic. Among the many sketches of
IT attractive character must be especially mentioned the
picture afforded by the writer of the famous ex-President
S nta Anna. " Don Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna,"
he says, ti is •
13 a hale-looking man, between fifty and
R,ixty, with an Old Bailey countenance and a well-
t.ilt wooden leg." His Senora is described as "a
prettyo girl of seventeen." Mr. Ruxton is manifestly
admirer of Santa Anna, and accordingly
retails with extreme gusto all the old slanders of his
debaucheries and peculations. His affection for de-
baucheries, be it observed, have not prevented him
from abandoning the voluptuous ease of the Havannah
to plunge his body and his fortunes into
the perils of a murderous warfare ; and, as
to his avarice and addietion to peculations, it can
never be forgotten that he has pawned his enormous
and magnificent possessions (estates extending over
very many miles, and covered with vast herds of
cattle) to meet the exigencies of the republican
y
ex-
chequer. With all his faults and vices, history will
declare of the ex President that he was remarkable
for his heroic bravery and for his glorious devotion
9.3 a patriot. His last resolution—War to the knife—
is a sufficient token that his bravery has not diminished
and that his patriotism has not decayed. Such are
the class of periodicals which are now produced for
the advantage of the community, at a comparatively
msigniSoant cost, and of a class calculated to afford
both instruction and amusement.