The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-17 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

lifclicia. By Adak Isaacs Mcuken. 1868.
London—Paris—Ncw York.

A pathetic little volume, exquisitely got up, and
entitled, with a most painful appropriateness, in-
felicia, comes to our hands mysteriously, we know
lot from whom, almost simultaneously with the
dinouncerneut of the quite unlocked-for death, in
ler seven-and-twentieth year, of Adah Isaacs
.‘lenken—the equestrian actress—the Mazeppa of
p.sterday ! It is a tiny tome or volumette of 141
miniature quarEo pages. It is arrayed in a glossy,
tpple-green binding. It is emblaXoned in gold on the
ocvilled side with the autograph title " Infelicia,”
'lid with the autograph signature " Menke')." ; and
gilt-lettered on the back with the same tersely
melancholy indications of the contents of the
)ook and of its authorship. Inscribed briefly "'lgo
Charles Dickens," without another word upon the
dedication-page--the little volume displays upon
he back of that same page the daintiest little pho-
,ograi.;hic facsimile of the following kindly accept-
'nee by Charles Dickens of the proferred. dedi-
zation

" Gads Hill-place, Higham-by-Rochester, Kent,
Monday, October 21, 1867.

" Dear Miss Menken,—l shall have great pleasure in
tccepting your dedication. I thank you for your portrait
is a highly remarkable specimen of photography. I also
.h•tnk you for the verses enclosed in your note. Many
,uch enclosures come to me, but few so pathetically written,
mud fewer still so modestly sent.
"Faithfully yours, CIIARLES DICKENS."

As it happens, therefore, the little bock, in any
case, would have propitiated public attention, intro-
lueed to the world, as it was to be and as it is,
)3r a great writer like Mr. Dickens —a writer
a fame so pure, and a name so illustrious. It
comes to us, however, yet more impressively ushered
with the added pathos of the announcement of the
young author's death. Hardly has the warmth of
life faded from her limbs, the light of life from her
eyes, the sense of life from her brain and heart, when
,he boOk—her one book—her first and last—appears
before us posthumously. It is impossible not to
regard it with the interest of pity. Notwithstand-
ing all her antecedents, it has a touch of grace
.►bout it that, for the passing moment, excites our
attention. Upon the inner cover of the volunv,
,urrounded by a mourning border, there are give a
the name of the young actress-authoress, together
with the dates marking the narro•,v limits of her
irief career, the date of the year of her
birth and the date of the year of her death
—" Adab Isaacs Menken-1811-1868." Oppo-
site the title-page is a charming little bright-
faced protraiture of her, a head exquisitely en-
graved and evidently from a photograph. Scat-
tered through the book, as head-pieces and tail-
pieces to the thirty-one poo.ns making up the
contents of the volume, there are some grace-
fully pencilled designs signed with the initials
" A. C."—the initials we are tempted to con-
jecture of the two first names [Christian names,
as they are conventionally called] of the
author of "Atalanta in Calydon" and " Chaste-
lard." •Vhosesoever they may be, they are charm-
ingly done at any rate. M for the contents of the
volume, as literary productions, they are scarcely to
be examined critically. The grave of the writer of
them is hardly yet closed in. Her dead lips hero
speak of them, on the nether side of her title-
page, as—
Leavas pallid and sDmbre and ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years;
Somo stained as with wine and made bloody,

And somo as with toars."
Me very first, on page one, entitled " Resurgam,"
begins—

"Yes, yes, dear love! lam dead!
Dead to you!
Dead to the world !
Dead for ever!"
Another, having as its heading " Myself," unler
limning of a dead female, with weeping angels on
either hand, takes for its motto—
" La patience est arnere ; mais lo fruit en est doux!
No; they are not for the cold-blooded analysis of
Briticism. They are like those flowers spoken, or
rather sung of by Longfellow—

" Bads that open only to decay."
got a garland of immortelles, but a wreath of si
and fading blossoms fallen from a dead hand by the
side of an open grave. " Infelicia," as we have
said, these poems are called, collectively, and as if
insisting upon the appositeness of the title selected
for them by their authoress, she inscribes 00,,
last of them as with a word of iteration, " Infeli%.
It is significant, by the way, in regard to a book,
the mere "get up" of which any publisher, one
night have fancied, would have been glad to have
acknowledged, that there is no evidence, either ia-
:ernally or externally, of any publisher's name at
dl, whether English, French, or American, vibe"
her of London, Paris, or New York. Not only
s it thus with Menken's "Infelicia," but nowhere
is there a trace of any printer's name—a circuity
dance, in its way, rendering the publication in
nanner