The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-05-17
Tbt Sstieb.


Amyas Leigh. BY Charles Kingsley, author of Hypaia
Alton Locke, &c. Boston Tcknor Il Fields. For sale
by Taylor Maury, Washington
Seldom have we been more reluctant to finish
the perusal of book, than when we laid down
this record of the glorious old days of "good
Queen Bess." There is an intensity of life in
the style of Kingsley, that takes captive at
once the imagination. You are no longer
under the sun of the nineteenth century. You
are plunged into the turbulence and turmoil of
the heroic age in England-an age .whose
mighty problems and contests awoke the genius
of man to such gigantic efforts as have hardly
had parallel. You look through no long
vista of ages; you are with Amyas, the tall
overgrown youth, as he first steps forward into
the writer's magic ring, with pulses precocious
ly beating for the "battle of life"-no fgura.
tive term in those days. You gaze into the
noble face of the chivalrous, gentle, pure-souled
Francis Leigh, too much the angel for earth.
You join in the van that finds the "Brother-
hood of the Rose" though you smile the while
at the pretty vision of its cynosure, the naive
country beauty, Rose Salterne, whose true, en-
during passion and terribly -tested principle al
last wipes from your memory her little follies
and coquetries.
But how shall we speak of the glimpses given
into "World" then indeed "New?" of Mar
garta, La Guayra, Higuerote, and the Banks
of the Meta?" What those grand old South
American forests may be, in reality, we know
not; what they have been to the imagination
OF Kingsley, we never can forget. To read a
chapter of these descriptions is like spending
an hour on consecrated grounds
The daughter of the Sum-" Spanish-born
and orest-bred-wild, resolute, passionate Ava
canora-in her transition from the savage to
the civilized state, gives US a fresh and brilliant
phase of womans nature. We feel that she is
the only mate for the Hercuean Amyas, whose
bigotry, national prejudices, and terrible oaths
of vengeance, so long fight down the impulses
of his really noble heart.
The concluding chapters may well move the
heart of even the strongest man. When the
hero-his sword flung into the sea; his preiu.
dice, vengeance, and hatred, stricken down for
ever-stands forth man. we feel how infinitely
above all brute force and savage enthusiasm is
one word from the rs still, small voice" Heaven
has implanted in the soul
Every page of this historical novel is instruct
i've as well as fascinating. The very atmosphere
of antiquity broods over it. Those who are
tired of the many commonplaces of our widely
spread literature, will find refreshment and in.
spiration in "Amyas Leigh"
AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS, delivered 1,h July 1855 by b.
Anderson, President Of the University of Rochester
New York.
The point made by President Anderson in
this address is, that the true aim of liberal edu-
cation is the development of all the faculties of
our nature, in perfect harmony with that great
system of moral means and appliances in
whose facts and principles our civil and social
order is embedded, involving that free and
generous success in science and letters neces-
sary to the best conduct of life, in society, and
in the State.
The popular idea, or rather the idea sought
to be made popular, that liberal education is
not requisite for success in life, and that men
do best to devote themselves to the study of
specific branches, to which they are to devote
their lives, is met by President Anderson with
objections and arguments hard to be over
come.
In the language of the celebrated Doctor
Whewell, "the development of individual tastes
and propensities is not the education of mans
humanity, but the indulgence of his individual
ity.r
The University of Rochester has within a
few years taken its place in the front rank of
our Institutions of Learning. The faculty is
large, and well appointed, and literally provi-
ded for. The city of Rochester is beautifully
situated in the most healthful section of the
Empire State.
President Anderson is well known to many
of the citizens of Washington, having resided
here for a season, and filling one of our pulpits
at very interesting period in the year l842.
He was then an earnest preacher, whose elo-
quence and singular ability attracted the atten.
ton and received the highest commentator
from John Quincy Adams, of all men the best
qualified to judge of men in such matters.
The promises of that day have been redeemed
in the ripening maturity of President Ander-
sons reputation and ever.increasing influence.