Appletons' Catalogue of Valuable Publications.
POETRY.
AMERICAN POETS.—GEMS FROM AMERICAN POETS.
Contains selections from nearly one hundred writers, among which are—Bryant, Halleck, Longfellow, Percival, Whittier, Sprague, Brainerd, Dana, Willis, Pinckney, AUston, Hillhouse, Mrs. Sigoumey, L. M . Davidson, Lucy Hooper, Mrs. Embury, Mrs. Hale, etc, etc. One vol, 32mo., frontispiece, gilt leaves, 37 cts. Forming one of the series of "Miniature Classical Library."
BURNS,—THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
Of Robert Bums, with Explanatory and Glossarial Notes, and a Life of the Author. By James Currie, M-D. Illustrated with six Steel Engravings. 16mo., $1,25. Forming one of the series of "Cabinet Edition of Standard British Poets."
This is the most complete American edition of Burns. It contains the whole of the poetry comprised in the edition lately edited by Cunningham, as well as some additional pieces; and such notes have been added as are calculated to illustrate the manners and customs of Scotland, so as to render the whole more intelligible to the English reader.
"He owes nothing to the poetry of other lands—he is the offspring of the soil: he is as natural to Scotland as the heath is to her hills—his variety is equal to his originality; his humor, his gaiety, his tenderness and his pathos, come all in a breath; they come freely, for they come of their own accord; the contrast is never offensive; the comic slides easily into the serious, the serious into the tender, and the tender into the pathetic."—Allan Cunningham.
COWPER.—THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS
Of William Cowper, Esq., including the Hymns and Translations from Mad. Guion, Milton, etc., and Adam, a Sacred Drama, from the Italian of Battista Andreini, with a Memoir of the Author. By the Rev. Henry Stebbing, A.M . One vol., 16mo., 800 pages, $1,50, or in 2 vols. $1,75. Forming one of the series of "Cabinet Edition of Standard British Poets."
"Morality never found in genius a more devoted advocate than Cowper, nor has moral wisdom, in its plain and severe precepts, been ever more successfully combined with the delicate spirit of poetry than in his works. He was endowed with all the powers which a poet could want who was to be the moralist of the world—the reprover, but not the satirist, of men—the teacher of simple truths, which were to be rendered gracious without endangering their simplicity."
DANTE—THE VISION OF HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE,
of Dante Alighieri. Translated by the Rev. Henry Cary, A.M . With a Life of Dante, Chronological View of his Age, Additional Notes and Index. Illustrated with Twelve Steel Engravings, from Designs by John Flaxman, R.A., and a finely engraved Portrait. One elegantly printed volume, 16mo., $1,50.
"Cary's Translation of the Vision of Dante is among the few immortal works destined to survive through all time, which are little known to our reading public. The Messrs. Appleton have therefore done good service in reproducing it here for the first time, in a style worthy of its intrinsic merit. It is an elegant copy of the latest corrected London edition, including Flaxman's famous outline illustrations, numerous explanatory notes, a memoir of the author, with a copy of the 'lost portrait,' a useful chronological index, and an index of the proper names used in the text. The portrait is a study of intellectual beauty and grace, and the volume is altogether an exceedingly beautiful specimen of American typography."
Dante was the first to sing of Heaven and Hell, not as mythological fictions, but as the objects of a real faith. In his Visions of the world of spirits, everything wears the air of stern reality. Heaven and Hell were no fictions to him. As he depicts the awful horrors of the regions of wo, every stanza glows with the intensity of agony, and nothing imaginable can ever exceed the serene beatitude of his visions of Paradise. We rise from the perusal with the same feelings as when we shake from us the influence of some overpowering enchantment. The unearthly splendour of a Bighter world lingers on our vision. But it is little less than presumption to comment upon a work which has been the text-book of Italian Literature for more than 500 years—the great mirror, in fact, wherein all later poets have toiletted for their appearance before the public.
"The Visions have been translated into every language of Europe, and several times into English; but the translation before us, by Rev. H. F. Cary, as revised last year for the fourth time, is confessedly the best that has been made. That it was originally approved by Coleridge, who has himself given us the best translation in the English tongue, would itself be sufficient testimony of its excellence, Mr. Cary has not attempted to transfer the flowing and sonorous, but diflicult 'rima,' but has wisely chosen to give us this highest Italian conception in tho highest English form—the form of Shakspeare and Milton.
That he has succeeded at least in giving to the world a fine and vigorous English poem, instead of an attempted imitation of incommunicable beauties, none will doubt who have the understanding and cultivation necessary to the appreciation of the great poem of the Middle Ages, or an ear and imagination—we had almost said a heart—attuned to the harmonies of that flexible and stately metre that well deserves to be called, by way of eminence, 'English verse.'"—New-York Advertiser.
